


if you dare, come a little closer

by iodhadh



Series: out of the dust; into the dark [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Kink Negotiation, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Orgasm Control, Other, Past Duncan/Male Warden, Pining, Platonic Relationships, Relationship Negotiation, Slow Burn, Trans Zevran, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 22:48:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5558480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iodhadh/pseuds/iodhadh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drust finds Sten inscrutable, but despite their differences the Qunari is astonishingly easy to talk to. Zevran, by contrast, he understands—perhaps better than he could ever find words to express—but the assassin has a thousand walls up and Drust can't figure out how to work his way through them.</p><p>Apparently his inconvenient heart doesn't know when to leave well enough alone. He ought to be focused on the Blight, but he never thought he'd be pining like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you dare, come a little closer

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, it is complete! This is extremely long and ludicrously self-indulgent, and I apologize for nothing.
> 
> If you haven't read my previous two Drust stories I would recommend it, as they provide a fair bit of context for his emotional landscape. At the very least read [eyes that know me](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4274325): it details his first meeting with Zevran and serves as something of a prologue to this fic. The earlier story, [my soul may set in darkness](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4872556), covers Drust’s recruitment, Ostagar, and the aftermath of losing Duncan, and is recommended but probably not required.
> 
> As usual, a number of conversations herein are shamelessly sampled from in-game dialogue (though I have also taken not-inconsiderable liberties with both the contents and the sequence of those conversations). The title of this one is from Rihanna's _Stay_. It as well as a number of other lovely songs can be found on [zevrantiva](https://8tracks.com/zevrantiva)'s gorgeous Zevran/Warden fanmix, [Songs of Thee](https://8tracks.com/zevrantiva/songs-of-thee). I invite you all to listen to it while reading this—it's what I was listening to for most of writing it.
> 
> This story contains discussion of both torture and suicidal ideation, though none of it is graphic. If you're familiar with Zevran's romance, there should be no surprises on that front.

It wasn’t that Zevran was a problem, exactly. Quite the opposite, in fact: as near as Drust could tell, he had every intention of keeping the oath he had sworn. The assassin had settled in with alacrity when Drust first brought him back to camp, filling the quiet with amiable chatter and joking with his new travelling companions as though he hadn’t just been on the other end of their blades. He paid no heed to the mistrustful glances some of them levelled his way, and didn’t protest when they found convenient excuses not to leave him alone for the first few days. It seemed he would do whatever was needed to earn their trust.

Drust’s eyes were always on him, and that, too, Zevran bore without complaint. Drust saw no reason to mention that his reasons were somewhat different from Alistair’s; he was glad of having an excuse for the way the assassin constantly drew his eye.

Before long Zevran’s manner had won the rest of the party over, at least as far as these things went: Morrigan and Sten were no more abrupt with him than they were with anyone else, and while Alistair was still clearly less than pleased with his presence, he was also willing to follow Drust’s lead. Leliana seemed completely at ease around him, but that was no surprise considering the suspicions Drust was starting to form about her background. And of course Cadeyrn, Drust’s mabari, had decided he liked Zevran. Against all odds the assassin fit in well with the group, and by the time they reached the Imperial Highway to Denerim he had been accepted, if grudgingly, into their midst.

So he wasn’t a _problem_ at all. It was just that Drust had no idea what to make of him.

That he was happy to be beyond the reach of the Crows was inarguable; that he was glad his life had been spared, Drust could only assume was so. But more than that, he couldn’t say. The fragility he had seen in Zevran on the road, the fear hidden behind laughing eyes, the flash of desperate hope that had been what convinced him to take the assassin on in the end—all of that had vanished like it never was. In the camp Zevran laughed and teased and followed orders without protest, but he wasn’t open. He had seemed so easy to read before, beautiful and precious in his vulnerability, but now he was simply beautiful. What had changed?

In one of his darker moments Drust had to wonder if Zevran had been lying about his motives, but he deliberately set his misgivings aside. Assassin or no, the elf deserved an opportunity to prove himself without anyone’s prejudgement. If his life truly was anything like he’d implied, he’d probably had precious little of that so far.

Still, second chances were one thing, but there was no reason to be stupid. Drust was hardly about to go into enemy territory beside someone he couldn’t get his head around, and so the night before they reached the outskirts of Denerim he sat down next to Zevran after dinner and fixed him with a direct stare. To his credit, the elf wasn’t rattled: he simply raised an eyebrow, returned Drust’s look, and waited him out.

Drust eyed him a moment longer, then said, perhaps unnecessarily, “I wanted to talk to you for a bit.”

“Well, here I am,” Zevran said, and gestured grandiosely.

Drust snorted. “Care to answer some questions?”

“Oh?” Zevran said. He leaned forwards slightly, his theatrical expression morphing into something impish. “This should be good. Go ahead.”

Drust didn’t want to start interrogating him, but he had come into this conversation with a goal. “You’ve explained the Crows, and how you came to join them,” he said, “but you haven’t said much about how they work. How did you get to be here, exactly? It’s a bit of a walk from Antiva.”

Zevran chuckled. “The process is simple enough,” he said. “Your Loghain contacted the Crows by the usual means that one contacts hired killers. That much, at least, I’m sure you are familiar with.”

Drust barked a laugh before he could stop himself. “You have no idea,” he said.

Zevran raised his eyebrows, but didn’t comment. “Once the House of Crows receives the job, the assassins may bid for it—our share of the reward,” he said. “The higher the bid, the less we receive from the contract. I made the winning bid, and so here I am. I arrived in the usual way,” he added. “Took ship into Denerim.”

Drust considered that, running a hand through his beard. It seemed like an awfully long way to go for little reward, but then, he’d never been an assassin, just a killer, and an unwilling one at that. “What does it take to do that kind of work?” he said.

Zevran shrugged. “Well, the Crows would have you believe that it is an involved process that takes years of training,” he said. “The sort that tests both your resolve and your endurance. Survive that process and maybe, just maybe, you’re good enough to start being considered one of them. But quite frankly the truth is that all it requires is a desire to kill people for a living.” He spread his hands, smiling disarmingly down at Drust. “It’s surprising how well one can do in such a field.”

“You did just fine, no doubt,” Drust said without thinking. He winced, already cursing his tongue; he half-expected Zevran to shut down the conversation and walk away after such a careless comment.

But fortunately the assassin just laughed. “Within the Crows, I did,” he said. “But it has been something they have devoted a great deal of time to perfecting.” He sat back, giving Drust a knowing look. “An assassin simply specializes in striking from stealth—and in maximizing that first attack to be as lethal as possible. Debilitating your foe, either by poison or by crippling their limbs, makes any follow-up combat you need to engage in that much simpler.”

Drust thought about the fighting he had done in his life, with the Wardens as well as before. While he couldn’t deny the potential applications of a stealthy approach, he had so rarely had a reason or a need for it. When it came to combat, he was brutal, bullheaded, and an unrepentant cheater. Finesse wasn’t something he had ever had the luxury of.

“Seems to me a straight up battle would be a lot simpler,” he said.

Zevran chuckled again, but there was something different about his manner. “Then I don’t imagine an assassin’s life would be one for you,” he said. Drust thought he almost sounded disappointed, but before he could puzzle it out the elf was moving on. “Of course, the Crows like to pretend that their abilities are trade secrets, shrouded in shadows and wrapped in a blanket of mystery.” He smirked, inviting Drust to share the joke, but the expression didn’t quite reach his eyes. “So let’s just keep this between you and me, hmm?”

“If you’d like,” Drust said, studying Zevran’s face as he tried to piece together the assassin’s mood. Did he think Drust disapproved?

Before he had the chance to ask, Zevran stood, bidding him an abrupt goodnight and disappearing into his tent. Drust sat back, wondering what had just happened—and whether he had even learned anything from the conversation.

Yes, he realized. Zevran had mentioned bidding for the contract, giving up his share of the money Loghain had spent to have Drust and Alistair eliminated, but on the road where they’d met he had told them he wasn’t going to be paid. Either he was lying about something—or he was telling the truth, and he’d bid his share entirely.

The thought of that chilled Drust. What could compel a man to come halfway across the world to kill someone for nothing?

  


* * *

  


He fell into step with Zevran on the way to the city the next morning. The assassin smiled easily, but Drust couldn’t help but feel that Zevran wasn’t quite looking at him.

“Can I help you with something?” Zevran said, the usual charming lilt to his voice.

Drust shrugged. “You disappeared awfully fast last night,” he said noncommittally, and—yes, there it was. Zevran was definitely avoiding his eyes.

“It is… best that I don’t talk about the Crows’ methods,” he said after a moment. “I have been sworn to secrecy, after all. If they found out I had been talking about it… well, they are likely already angry enough, if you take my meaning.”

Drust gave him a dry look. “Why don’t I believe you?” he said. Zevran didn’t answer, and after a long moment where the only sound to accompany their footsteps was the never-ending backdrop of Alistair and Morrigan’s bickering, Drust shrugged again. “I’ll respect your word. I just don’t think you’re telling me the real reason you ran off.”

Zevran laughed softly. “Too clever by half, Warden,” he said. “Very well, I am at your service. What do you wish to know?”

Drust didn’t say anything right away, a slight frown on his face as he stared down at the road. “Honestly, I’m just trying to figure you out,” he said quietly. “You’ve sworn yourself to me, but I feel like I know next to nothing about you.” He lifted his eyes to Zevran, only to be momentarily brought up short by the elf studying him with something like wonder on his face. He forced himself to continue despite the flip in his stomach. “I understand why you wanted to leave the Crows. You don’t have to explain that to me. But now that you’re out, what are you going to do?”

For a moment it seemed like Zevran was having trouble finding his voice, but when he spoke his words were clear. “Now that you mention it, I am not entirely certain,” he said. When Drust gave him a questioning look he smiled disarmingly, injecting some levity into his tone. “I never had the chance to make that choice, you know. I was but a boy of seven when I was purchased. For three sovereigns, I’m told—which is a good price, considering I was all ribs and bone and didn’t know the pommel of a dagger from the pointy end. The Crows get all their assassins that way,” he added. “Buy them young, raise them to know nothing but murder. And if you do poorly in your training, you die.”

He said it so casually that Drust nearly flinched. Zevran had to have been expecting that: this wasn’t the first time he’d mentioned the callousness of the Antivan Crows, and Drust’s reaction had been the same every time. He didn’t think it would ever stop feeling like a punch in the chest. It was one thing to have an employer who devalued your life; it was another entirely to devalue yourself at your employer’s behest.

It hit far too close to home.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That sounds awful.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Zevran said, but despite his words he looked gratified. “The Crows who are actually good enough to survive come to enjoy some of the benefits. In Antiva, being a Crow gets you respect. It gets you wealth. It gets you women… and men, or whatever it is you fancy,” he added, giving Drust a wink. “But that does mean doing what is expected of you, always. And it means being expendable. It’s a cage, if a gilded cage. Pretty, but confining.”

Zevran had alluded to being interested in men before, so Drust was able to keep his voice steady. “The Carta was much less glamorous,” he informed him. “At least for those of us on the bottom—Beraht probably had a better time of it.” He pulled a face. “He certainly had enough to outfit my sister nicely.”

Zevran hesitated, then said delicately, “Was she his, ah…”

Drust cut him off before he could get any further. “She’d never say. Which I think is answer enough,” he said. “I killed him for it. Well, I killed him for a lot of things, but mostly to keep her safe.” He grimaced, then pushed the subject away. “That wasn’t why he outfitted her, though. She was a noble hunter.”

It was funny how Zevran’s politely baffled look was a bigger reminder than anything else that Drust was a surfacer now. He had managed to get used to the sky, of all things, but the culture? Forget it. “It’s a caste thing,” he explained. “Female children inherit the mother’s caste, but males inherit the father’s, and a legitimate child’s mother must be legitimate herself. If Rica—my sister—had a nobleman’s baby, the right baby, she’d be raised to the nobility, and our family along with her.”

Zevran’s eyes lit with understanding. “So the women dress themselves nicely and go in search of a willing lord,” he said. His voice was admiring. “That’s very clever. What caste were you?”

Drust laughed mirthlessly. “No caste. Descended from criminals and degenerates,” he said. He tapped his brand. “They mark the casteless with this.”

Zevran looked startled, no doubt having assumed that Drust’s marks were like his own, decorative and deliberate; then there was a moment of realization, where Drust could practically see him fitting together all the little moments of understanding that had already passed between them. His voice was more subdued when he spoke again. “My apologies,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

Drust exhaled a slow sigh. “It’s all right. I’m well out of it now,” he said. “I was lucky, though—going to the surface isn’t a choice most dwarves could make, even the casteless. Noble hunting is a gamble, but it’s the best chance people like us have got. The nobles and the warriors lose a lot of children to the darkspawn campaigns,” he explained, “so it’s not hard to find a patron. The only problem is we couldn’t afford it. So Beraht came to us and offered to pay for Rica’s dresses and jewels and lessons, and in exchange she was to claim him as her uncle when the baby was born, assuming it was the right baby. He called her an _investment_ ,” he added in disgust. “I hated the way he talked about her more than I hated working for him.”

“Is that common?” the assassin said. “What he did, I mean? One imagines such investors would be found out, sooner or later.”

“They are, sometimes, but less often than you’d think,” Drust said. “The Shapers don’t track casteless lineage—according to the Memories, we don’t exist. And Beraht looked enough like us that he could have pulled it off. That’s probably why he came to us in the first place.” He shrugged. “And, honestly, who’s to say he’s not related to us? Or to me, at least. I never knew my father.”

Zevran’s mouth twisted wryly, but then he smiled. “In this, we are alike. A proper pair of sad stories,” he said lightly. Evidently deciding Drust could use a distraction, he added, “So, tell me—is it just the women who go hunting nobles, or did this Beraht have you out seeking a patron as well? As fine a figure as you cut in your armour, I must admit I would like to see you dressed in jewels and silks.”

Drust almost laughed. “I’ve never worn silk in my life,” he said. “There are some male noble hunters, but they’re not as common. Most nobles are betrothed pretty young if they can bear children, and their spouses don’t look kindly on dusters trying to do a job they’re perfectly capable of themselves.” He shook his head. “No, I was an enforcer. I’d have been a waste of time as a noble hunter.”

“What a shame,” Zevran said. “Why’s that?”

Drust actually did laugh that time. “Because I don’t sleep with women,” he said. “There are a few men who can bear children, of course, but not many, and Beraht decided I wasn’t worth the investment. I was better suited to the dirty work, anyway.”

When Zevran didn’t reply right away, Drust cast him a glance, and was once again brought up short by the assassin staring at him with some unnameable emotion on his face. “What?” he said.

Zevran shook himself, and just like that his charm was back. “Nothing. I am just surprised to hear you state what you fancy so openly. I thought Fereldans were prudish about that.”

“I’m not really Fereldan,” Drust said with a grin. He tried to ignore his pulse thumping in his ears as he said, “Why? What is it you fancy, exactly?”

Zevran’s answering smile was immediate, and so warm Drust thought he might melt. “I fancy many things. I fancy things that are beautiful and things that are strong. I fancy things that are dangerous and exciting. Would you be offended if I said I fancied you?”

Drust could barely hear his own voice over the tempo of his beating heart. “Not at all.”

“This is good to know,” Zevran said, giving Drust a significant look. “Perhaps that will inform what I do, now that I am free of the Crows. Or perhaps not,” he added impishly. “Truly, I can’t imagine what the future holds. It might be interesting to go into business for myself, for a change. Far away from Antiva, of course. For now, naturally, I go where you go.”

Then he bowed extravagantly, fluttered his fingers in farewell, and picked up his pace to go join Alistair in needling Morrigan. Drust was left watching after him, confused and uncertain and suddenly half-sick with longing. How was it fair, that Zevran could tease like that? How was it fair, that Drust could feel this way again scarcely three months since he had lost Duncan?

Sten caught up to him while Drust was still staring and gave him a flat look. “Warden,” he said by way of greeting. “The walls of your enemy’s city are within view. You cannot afford to be distracted.”

Drust looked up—would he ever stop being staggered by Sten’s height?—and sighed. “No, you’re right,” he said. “My apologies, Sten. Let’s go.”

The Qunari made a noise in his throat, but fell in with Drust with no further protest and matched his pace seemingly without effort. The sound of their steps in perfect time carried Drust all the way to Denerim’s gates.

  


* * *

  


That was the thing: Zevran wasn’t the only murderer Drust had brought into his camp—or the only one he found it startlingly easy to empathize with.

They were all killers by this point, of course; they had fought their way through bandits and werewolves and back alley thugs, not to mention veritable oceans of darkspawn. Alistair had been in combat before, had been trained as a templar and a Grey Warden both, and despite her obvious preference for nonviolent solutions Leliana had been cagey about how, exactly, she had picked up her particular skillset. And who knew what Morrigan had gotten up to in the Wilds? She certainly wasn’t telling. But despite how much Drust cared for them, he couldn’t help but feel that they wouldn’t understand the carnage in his background, not the way Zevran obviously did. He shared that feeling with Sten, as well.

It had started not long after they left Lothering. Sten had been quiet since Drust had taken him into his custody—answering questions only grudgingly, performing his share of camp duties without argument or complaint, brushing off Drust’s concerns for his well-being after his long stay in the cage. He had refused to say anything about the Qunari, made his disapproval clear whenever they stopped for any reason other than to sleep, and tersely dismissed all inquiries about his time as a soldier or the homeland of his people. It was only when Drust had lost his patience and snapped at him that Sten had showed the slightest other side to his personality.

“Are you always this bad at answering questions?” Drust had demanded after yet another frustratingly circular conversation with the Qunari.

Sten had simply raised one eyebrow, tipped his head to look down at him, and—was that the flash of a smile?

“Generally,” he said, and turned away.

After that Drust had stopped answering his occasional comments with polite reserve, and started responding in dry quips and firm challenges. And it had worked: Sten had started to warm up to him, bit by bit, until at last Drust had sat down next to him at the cooking fire to ask why he’d come to Ferelden, and Sten had actually responded.

“To answer a question,” he had said, his voice uncharacteristically soft in its solemnity.

“What was the question?” Drust asked, and nearly held his breath.

“The Arishok asked ‘what is the Blight?’” Sten said. “By his curiosity, I am now here.”

That Drust didn’t understand the answer mattered far less to him than the fact that one had been given. “What’s an Arishok?”

“The one who commands the antaam—the body of the Qunari people,” Sten said.

“Does that mean he’s your king?” Drust said. He had the feeling that wasn’t right, but it was the only comparison he knew.

As he’d expected, Sten shook his head. “Qunari have no kings,” he said, stirring the sauce he was simmering over the fire. It smelled wonderful, warm and smoky and heavily spiced, as unfamiliar to Drust’s senses as Sten himself was unlike anyone he’d ever known before—and suddenly Drust wanted nothing more than to _understand._

“What do you have, then?” he said.

Sten snorted briefly. “Little patience for endless questions.”

That startled a laugh from Drust, and he grinned. “Tough.”

“Indeed,” Sten said, and passed him a bowl of rice.

After everyone had eaten—the sauce had been ladled over the rice, and Drust had discovered tenderly cooked chunks of chicken in it, the fowl in question likely having been requisitioned from an abandoned farmstead—he had set his bowl aside and stretched out by the fire, his head and shoulders propped up against the flank of his enormous warhound. Next to him, Sten was tending to his blade, and the quiet rasp of a whetstone was as familiar to Drust as breathing. How many times had he sat with Leske doing exactly this, with only the warmth of the fire and their quiet conversation to keep out the endless dark of Dust Town?

“Your people live in the north,” he said. “Why would the Qunari care about the Blight?”

“Why do you?” Sten said evenly, drawing the stone once more down the edge of the greatsword Drust had taken off a darkspawn warrior.

“I’m a Grey Warden. It’s my job.”

“Exactly,” Sten said, his voice tinged faintly with approval. “You don’t ask. Nor do I. The Arishok sends me, and I go.”

Drust twisted his head around to look at Sten, half upside-down. “Don’t you have to report back, then?”

“Yes.”

“When are you going to do that?”

“Never,” Sten said shortly. “I cannot go home.”

The wounds in him were easy to sense, but Drust pushed anyway, tantalized by the promise of camaraderie just out of reach. “Why not?” he said.

“It doesn’t matter now,” Sten said. He tested the edge of his blade on his thumb, and, satisfied with what he found, got to his feet. “Goodnight, Warden.”

Drust heaved a sigh, and Cadeyrn yipped at him softly; he scratched the dog’s ears, then settled back down, unable to bring himself to curse his curiosity. Sten’s brusqueness was frustrating at times, but he was entitled to his privacy—and it wasn’t like Drust didn’t understand the complexity of exile. That he had been able to have this conversation at all was a blessing. Sten would speak to him again.

And he did. In the Dalish camp he had largely been silent, listening to Zathrian’s request and Sarel’s tales and looking over the injured hunters with sharp and searching eyes. It was only when they left the camp and made their way into the forest itself that he spoke up of his own volition.

“This is like my home in Seheron,” he had said, head tilted back to look at the trees overhead. “But the fiends here are only monsters.”

Drust had wanted to ask him about that, but they had werewolves to deal with, and the occasional pocket of encroaching darkspawn, and the growing suspicion that Zathrian had left out some key details when he’d asked Drust to go in search of Witherfang, and so he let it alone until they’d made camp that night. They had set up two tents in a sheltered hollow of the forest, cooked a simple meal, and retired to their rest. They had an early start the next morning.

Drust was sharing with Sten, leaving the other tent to Morrigan and Leliana. As they unbuckled their armour and laid out their beds, he said, “You said something about fiends in Seheron before. What did you mean?”

Sten pulled off his boots and sat, legs crossed. “Ours wear the faces of men.”

For a horrible moment Drust thought he was being literal, but then he made sense of Sten’s metaphor. “That’s cryptic,” he said, sliding into his bedroll.

The Qunari looked down at him, expression sombre in the dim light. “Darkspawn, abominations, plagues, and storms,” he said, “men are far more dangerous than these. One moment of betrayal can bring more ruin than an earthquake. You know this.”

Drust did know. “What did they do?” he said softly.

“They are Tal-Vashoth,” Sten said. “They say they are ‘grey ones.’ True, in their knowledge of themselves.” He shook his head. “They are gaping holes where men used to be. Nothing can fill them.”

Drust didn’t understand—this was something Qunari, something too alien for him to know what to compare it to—but he wanted to hear what Sten had to say. “What do they want?”

“I don’t know,” Sten said. He laid down next to him, hands folded on his stomach, staring up into the darkness at the roof of the tent. “There was a village in the mountains of Seheron. Farmers. They grew cinnamon and nutmeg trees in perfectly ordered rows. There would always be one person waiting. A foreman, a harvester, rank didn’t matter. Often, they would say nothing—simply watch as we worked to examine the empty house, a new one each time, that had once been the home of a colleague, a friend.” He closed his eyes, sighing softly with the quiet weariness of old memories. “We always made a point of searching. Now and then, a body would turn up in a river, eaten by rain and crows. More often, we found nothing. Even in the worst parts of the jungle, the villagers would send someone with us, to see the tiniest piece of bone or cloth. Anything contained the possibility of their lost friend.”

If anything, that just confused Drust more. He could feel the edges of something, but couldn’t understand its shape. “They just disappear?” he said.

“They run,” Sten said. “They abandon the Qun, and they run, and if they are found, they fight until they die.”

“Why?”

Sten shrugged, the movement of his shoulders made enormous by his proximity. “Isn’t it in the nature of a wound to bleed? I have no more answers than you. Why do we fight the darkspawn? Why do the darkspawn fight us?”

Grey Warden or no, Drust could give no response to that, but he pushed on anyway. “Don’t the Tal-Vashoth give reasons?” he said, tongue stumbling over the unfamiliar words.

“Now and then,” Sten said. “Do the reasons matter? It makes little difference to those they fight.” He turned to look at Drust, his strange purple eyes luminous in the dark. “Tell me, then: why do you fight?”

“Because I have to,” Drust said after a moment. There was no answer but that.

“Yes,” Sten said, and then, like he’d read Drust’s mind, “there is no other reason. The Tal-Vashoth wish us dead. We wish to go on living. The point of our war is war.”

Drust drifted uneasily into sleep. The next day they got up, and fought more werewolves, and fought more darkspawn, and fought because they had to. Sten was by his side every step of the way. In many ways the Qunari was still a mystery to him, but in this, at least, they understood each other. The rest would come in time.

  


* * *

  


After the werewolves, after learning what Zathrian had done and forcing him to undo it, after Zevran had been adopted into their fold, Drust thought often about how much of his life had been spent in violence. It was hard not to, when Zevran’s stories of the Crows reminded him so of the Carta, or when new waves of darkspawn appeared at every turn, or when Denerim was crawling with opportunists hoping for a shot at the last remaining Grey Wardens. Drust had fought just to survive for most of his life; he was still doing that now, but he was also fighting for a much larger cause, and he couldn’t help but think there was something painfully ironic about making war for the sake of peace.

One night after yet another senseless battle with a pack of mercenaries drawn by Loghain’s bounty, he sat down with Zevran. “Do you actually enjoy being an assassin?” he said, skipping over the pleasantries.

Zevran laughed. “And why not?” he said. “There are many things to enjoy about being a Crow in Antiva. You are respected; you are feared; the authorities go out of their way to overlook your trespasses. And the rewards are nothing to turn your nose up at.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Drust said. “I’m not asking about being a Crow. Do you enjoy being an _assassin_ , I mean—killing for a living.”

“Well…,” Zevran said, trailing off with a shrug that was half apologetic, half unabashed. “Some people simply need assassinating. Or do you disagree?”

“You’ve never had to kill someone innocent?” Drust pressed.

Zevran hummed. “Now there’s an interesting word, ‘innocent,’” he said. “How many men do you know who can claim to be truly innocent? But if you’re talking generalities, such as children and relatives and bystanders and such… never on purpose, but it happens.” He contemplated that for a moment, then shrugged again. “It’s unfortunate, but death comes to us all. If not me, then some wasting disease. Or a fall down the stairs. Or at the hands of the darkspawn. It’s all relative in the end.”

Drust was tired of death and weary of warfare, and all he said was, “That sounds like an excuse.”

Zevran turned his amber eyes on him, and for half a second they almost looked cold. “You think so?” he said. “The Crows have a saying: ‘death happens.’ And when we get paid for it, death happens more often. And as for enjoying the act of killing itself, why not? There is a certain artistry to the deed, the pleasure of sinking your blade into their flesh and knowing that their life is in your hands.”

Drust found that his own hands had clenched into fists, and he forced them to relax. He remembered the way he had torn through Beraht’s enemies when he worked with the Carta, how he had learned to shut his emotions off until he could just go to work, how seeing someone’s life ebb out on his blades had left him feeling only an abstract pride at the knowledge of a job well done. “I wish I didn’t know what you mean,” he said quietly. “I take no pleasure in it.”

“Perhaps I misspoke,” Zevran said. “It is not pleasure, per se. Nothing sexual. It is more a sense of satisfaction, a feeling of power. Does that make sense? No matter.”

But it did make sense, and it made Drust sick to his stomach.

Zevran was still speaking. “There are many things I did not enjoy about being a Crow, of course. Having no choice, being treated as expendable, the rules… oh, so many rules! But simply being an assassin? I like it just fine. I will continue to do it, if I can, even if I am not a Crow.” He grinned then, perhaps sensing that the conversation had gotten a bit too heavy, and added, “Honestly, could you picture me doing something else?”

 _There are so many things I could picture you doing_ , Drust thought, but he couldn’t say it for fear of breaking his own heart. It hadn’t been so long ago that he had thought he’d be a duster thug forever. If he gave Zevran the chance, perhaps he’d come around. So instead he tried to match the assassin’s smile, and said, “Handsome elf like you? I can think of a few things.”

That won him a laugh. “I mean professionally. Or maybe you mean professionally, as well? Perhaps you intend to peddle my services to bored Fereldan noblewomen?” Zevran said. The teasing warmth was back in his eyes. “It is an interesting thought, but I’ve always removed my clothes strictly on an amateur basis. A talented amateur, of course,” he added with a wink, “but an amateur nonetheless.”

And then just when Drust thought they’d regained their equilibrium, Zevran said, “Of course, all these thoughts are moot. Chances are still good that you and I will perish, eaten by darkspawn or slain by the Crows at some point. Very gruesomely, I imagine.” He stretched and stood up. “Though I suppose it is pleasant enough to chat about. Until tomorrow, then, my Grey Warden.”

He made for his tent, leaving Drust behind to wonder how someone so vibrant and alive could be so steeped in death, and how he could care so much for someone who made his heart hurt as much as Zevran did.

  


* * *

  


It was so easy to talk to Sten, in comparison.

The Qunari didn’t seem to have friends in their group, other than possibly Drust himself; he wasn’t as abrupt as he had once been, but he didn’t often chat on the road or banter by the fireside as the rest of them did. Still, he sat in their company when they made camp and set his tent up right beside the others, and more and more he seemed to look forward to the times Drust would seek him out for conversation. It had taken a while, but he had started to relax—even if Drust was the only one who could see it.

He was sitting at the fire one night on the road to Kinloch Hold, listening to Alistair and Leliana swap humorous stories as Zevran industriously scrubbed at a pot, when Sten sat down nearby and laid out his armour in an orderly row before him. He had polish and an old cloth in one hand, and he set to cleaning his gear without saying anything, but it had hardly been necessary for him to carry it all up to the fireside. Drust could take a hint.

“Sten,” he said. “You mentioned something in Denerim that I wanted to ask you about.”

“Speak, then,” the Qunari said, not looking up.

“It was about the children,” Drust said. “In the market district? You said something about sending them back to the priests. Why?”

For a moment Sten’s hands stilled, but then he resumed his work. “What they were doing—it did not look like it served any purpose.”

Drust cocked his head. “They were playing,” he said. “I don’t think it’s supposed to serve a purpose.” He was aware that Leliana and Alistair had stopped their conversation to listen, that even the sound of Zevran’s scrubbing had quieted and slowed, but he kept his attention on Sten. If he tried, he could almost imagine they were the only two people in the world.

“That word means nothing to me,” Sten said.

“What, playing?” A nod. “What do Qunari children do, if they don’t play?” Drust said.

“They study.”

“Study what?”

For the first time, Sten canted a glance his way, a skeptical look out of the corners of his eyes. “They learn their place in the world.”

“What does that mean?” Drust said.

The Qunari made a faintly exasperated noise. “What do your priests teach the imekari, if not how to be adults?”

“I don’t have priests,” Drust said reasonably. “I’m a dwarf. We’re not exactly big on organized religion. And anyway, that’s not what priests do.”

For a moment the only sounds in the campsite were the crackling of the fire and the suddenly renewed effort of Zevran’s scrubbing. Sten turned to look him full in the eyes, his expression more uncertain than Drust had ever seen it.

“Then…,” he said hesitantly, “who trains the imekari?”

“Their parents, usually,” Drust said. He had never thought of this as a concept that would need explaining; what was he missing?

Sten provided the other piece of the puzzle. “‘Parents?’” he said. “Are you speaking nonsense on purpose? If you insist on talking, use real words.”

That was new. “Qunari don’t have parents,” Drust said, testing, more a statement than a question.

“I don’t know what that is.”

He attempted to backtrack. “What do the Qunari call people with children?”

“Tamassrans,” Sten said, looking glad to be on firmer ground. “But the imekari are not ‘theirs.’ They belong to the Qunari, not to the priesthood.”

“So tamassrans are a kind of priest?” Drust said. Sten nodded. “Children are raised by the priests, but they belong to everyone?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t your people raise their own children?”

Sten gave him a dry look and went back to his armour. “It obviously didn’t work for you.”

There was a choked noise from behind Drust, and he startled: he had almost forgotten his companions were there. He turned around; Alistair seemed offended, while Leliana had clapped a hand over her mouth and looked to be smothering giggles. Shaking his head, Drust turned back to the Qunari. “Cute,” he said.

“I liked it,” Sten replied. A fleeting smile crossed his lips, but then he sobered. “But it’s true. You are a Grey Warden, yet you know little of your own order. You do not know yourself, or what you are for. It was cruel of your people to leave you this way. The tamassrans see that all Qunari know themselves.”

Alistair made another offended noise, but Drust found himself obscurely touched. “I think I understand,” he said. “Still, all told, I’m glad my people didn’t get to decide who I am.”

“Why?” Sten said. He set aside his breastplate and picked up a gauntlet. “You cannot decide who they are.”

Drust snorted. “Now who’s speaking nonsense?”

“You cannot make the world suit you,” Sten said patiently. “You must suit the world.”

Drust considered that for a moment, then shrugged. “I suppose so. Still, I think I’ll decide for myself who I am.”

“Decide, then,” Sten advised. “You are to end the Blight. How will you do it?”

Once, the rapid change in apparent topic would have left Drust’s head spinning, but he had learned by now that for Sten, identity was inextricably tied to what people did. Drust was a Warden—to Sten’s mind, that was all he needed to know.

It was easy enough for Drust to redirect his thoughts. “We have to fight the Archdemon,” he said.

“Is that all?” the Qunari said. “It is surrounded by an ocean of darkspawn. How will you reach it? If you reach it, how will you slay it?”

Drust felt his lips lifting into a smile. “I’ve killed one dragon already. I think I can manage a second, even if it is bigger. And as for how I’ll reach it, well, isn’t that what I have you for? We’ll do this one darkspawn at a time if that’s what it takes.”

The noise Sten made was dismissive, but it also sounded faintly amused. “Why do you hesitate, then? It is your task to fight these creatures.”

“We aren’t finished with our preparations yet.”

“What purpose does this serve?” Sten said. “If you fail, preparation beforehand will have been pointless, and if you succeed, it will be by sheer chance anyway.”

Drust couldn’t help but laugh. “What do you want to do? Charge straight at the Archdemon?”

“At least then we would be going in the right direction,” Sten said dryly. “I have heard stories of your order. Great strategists and peerless warriors: that is what we hear of the Grey Wardens. So far I am not impressed.”

The fireside went still, even the sound of Zevran’s scrubbing going silent. Drust could feel the tension crackling in the air, but he brushed it aside. “I’m not here to impress you,” he said.

As he’d suspected, Sten seemed pleased with that answer. “Evidently not,” he agreed. “It remains only to see what you are here for.”

“Maybe I’m just here for myself,” Drust suggested. That wasn’t the whole of it, and he knew that, but he wanted to know how the Qunari would answer him.

Sten gave him a knowing look, and his voice, when he spoke, was soft. “That would be a waste,” he said. “A life is so much greater than a single man.”

  


* * *

  


They had nearly reached Lake Calenhad when Zevran caught up to Drust on the road. “I’ve a question, if I may,” he said without preamble. He had a smile on, but his amber eyes looked nervous.

“Go ahead,” Drust said, shifting over to give the assassin space to walk comfortably beside him. He was glad of a chance to talk with him: Zevran had been quieter than usual since he had witnessed Drust’s fireside conversation with Sten; maybe now Drust would find out why.

Zevran fell in, matching his stride to Drust’s steady pace. “Well, here is the thing,” he said. “I swore an oath to serve you, yes? And I understand the quest you’re on and this all very fine and well.” He paused there, the nervousness overtaking his expression, and Drust nodded encouragingly. Zevran bit his lip. “My question pertains to what you intend to do with me once this business is over with. As a point of curiosity,” he added hastily.

Drust raised his eyebrows slowly. “Do with you? Am I expected to do something with you?” he said. “I could ravish you in celebration, if that was what you had in mind.”

Zevran let out a startled laugh. “Oh, of course, of course. The ravishing part is a given,” he said carelessly. “I was thinking more—afterwards. One simply assumes that, once your Grey Warden business is finished, you would have no need of an assassin to follow you about.” His brow creased and he turned those honeyed eyes on Drust. “Am I wrong?”

Drust was silent for a moment, his heart thumping in his throat. “Well,” he began, “assuming I actually survive this, I’m not sure my Grey Warden business is ever going to be finished. I swore an oath too, you know—one considerably more binding than yours.” He lifted his hand, toying with the Joining pendant he wore at his throat, and swallowed around the surge of grief that welled up at that touch. “Being a Grey Warden isn’t exactly something you stop doing. I’ll still have work to do. So, if you wanted to keep following me then—well, it’s not like I’d turn you away.” He smiled then, shooting the assassin a teasing glance. “Why? You rethinking your plan to go into business for yourself?”

Zevran chuckled, but his frame was still tense. “One always likes to know what one’s options might be,” he said. “I suppose I just wondered if you would still have a use for my presence.”

That was it, Drust realized, with a shock of recognition so strong it might as well have been lightning. Zevran had spent so long in the grips of the Crows, where his only value was the coin he could bring in, that he didn’t know what to do with himself if he couldn’t serve someone else’s purpose. It was something that Drust still struggled with himself, though he was getting better at it the longer he spent in command. But Zevran had had no such opportunity.

 _You beautiful, glorious creature_ , Drust wanted to say, _you are worth so much more than the use you can be_.

But he knew that if he did, Zevran would simply brush him off—so instead Drust swept his eyes very deliberately down his body and gave him a roguish grin. “Oh, don’t you worry,” he said. “There’s always a use or two for a handsome elf.”

The relief Zevran felt at that was a palpable thing, clear and bright in the lines of his jaw and shoulders, and he answered Drust’s grin with one of his own. “I’m sure I could come up with a few more, if pressed,” he said.

“If there’s one thing I will never doubt, it’s your versatility,” Drust agreed. He paused. “I wanted to ask about that, actually. Have you always been…?”

Zevran hiked a brow. “Intrigued by tight leather clothing?” he said, smirking.

Drust laughed. “Amongst other things.”

“But there’s so much to talk about!” Zevran said, joining in on Drust’s laughter. “I grew up in a whorehouse, before the Crows bought me,” he explained. “My introduction to the subject of sex was, shall we say, rather practical. My only rule is that it be done well. Men, or women, or any combination thereof—it makes no difference to me. It’s a certain open-mindedness that the Crows encourage in their recruits, for very good reasons. So, yes, I suppose, I ‘have always been.’”

Somewhere in the middle of the assassin’s explanation, Drust had started to flush. He could feel the heat prickling in his face and ears and coiling low in his belly. He cleared his throat. “Sounds good to me.”

For a moment Zevran just grinned at him, but then his expression shuttered abruptly and his eyes flickered, focusing briefly on something ahead. “Ha!” he said. “I thought you might think so. You seem to have an open mind, yourself, no?” Then he gave a determinedly casual shrug, evidently choosing to set the matter aside. “Enough talk of the past,” he said. “As my tutor used to say, ‘keep your eyes to the rear in the ambush and the bedchamber and not otherwise.’ Words to live by.”

He moved off, and Drust found himself bewildered. Though Zevran’s tone had been light and teasing, it was obvious that something was still bothering him—and just when Drust had thought things were starting to go well. What exactly had drawn his gaze? Drust looked ahead, but all he could see was the highway, the fields, the lake in the distance—and twenty paces up the road, Sten, leading the march to Kinloch Hold.

  


* * *

  


The horror that was the Circle Tower gave Drust plenty of distraction from his interpersonal troubles. If Zevran was uncharacteristically grim as they battled they way from room to room, Drust could hardly blame him: he was feeling pretty grim himself. Even Sten showed the strain of the tower’s challenges, winding tighter into himself as they tore through revenants, blood mages, and abominations. The three of them worked well together, at least, and Wynne proved to be the perfect complement to their triumvirate of violence. By the time they reached the fourth floor, Drust was actually starting to hope they might get through this in one piece.

Then the demon threw them into the Fade and ripped Drust’s companions from him, leaving him in an unfamiliar world that swirled with improbable visions and preyed on every corner of his mind.

He knew right away that something was wrong. Sloth had done a poor job of digging up Drust’s memories of Duncan, if this pale imitation was what it had formed from them—this Duncan had none of the heart in him that Drust remembered from the road, none of the beautiful nobility or the heat in his gaze that could pass to Drust with a single glance. It still took all he had not to weep when he struck the spirit down, not to stagger as the pain wrenched through him at seeing the Warden fall a second time. If Sloth had instead given him the stars, the tent they had shared on the road to Ostagar and the warmth of Duncan’s breath against his throat, Drust might not have had the strength to leave.

He fought his way through the Fade realms with a bullheaded determination more than any sort of knack for puzzles. It was a relief to work his way past the impossible obstacles to find the creatures that dwelled there: fighting, at least, he understood. He struggled methodically through one realm after another until the way was clear, and then he turned aside to rescue his companions.

He was not prepared for the nightmares he found them in. Zevran’s made him boil with fury; Sten’s just broke his heart.

By the time it was all over, Uldred dead and the mages saved and order restored to the Circle, Drust was devastated and wrung out despite his relief. All he wanted was to curl up in his tent and sleep for the next week, but they still had work to do, and so with a groan he dragged himself out to the fire and sat down heavily between Cadeyrn and Zevran, settling the dog’s head on his lap and leaning into the warmth of Zevran’s body.

“Tell me about Antiva,” he said.

Zevran looked nearly as worn as Drust felt, but he lit up with a smile. “Oh, Antiva is a marvel,” he said, putting his arm around Drust’s shoulders and easily bearing his exhausted weight. “The only way to truly appreciate it would be to go there. It is a warm place, not cold and harsh like this Ferelden. In Antiva it rains often, but the flowers are always in bloom… or so the saying goes.”

Drust could feel himself relaxing into the elf’s embrace. He turned his head into Zevran’s shoulder and breathed a grateful sigh. “Flowers and assassins,” he said. “Why am I not surprised?”

Zevran laughed softly. “Every land has its assassins,” he said. “Some are simply more open about their business than others.” He stroked a hand down Drust’s braid, his touch fond. “I hail from the glorious Antiva City, home to the royal palace. It is a glittering gem amidst the hills, my Antiva City. Do you come from someplace comparable?”

It took a moment for Drust to realize Zevran had asked him a question. He snorted. “I’m not from any glittering gem, no,” he said.

“No? That is too bad,” Zevran said. “If you were, then surely you would spend as much time boasting about it as I do.”

Drust hummed noncommittally, closing his eyes. “You can see it, when we go to Orzammar. I’ll show you where I grew up. It’s… not much. But it’s the only home I’ve ever known.”

“I understand,” Zevran said. “We speak of my homeland, but for all its dark-haired beauties and the lillo flutes of the minstrels, it is the leather I miss the most.”

“Now this I have to hear,” Drust mumbled into his shoulder.

“I mean the smell,” Zevran said, and Drust could hear the smile in his voice. “For years I lived in a tiny apartment near Antiva City’s tanning district, in a building where the Crows stored their youngest recruits, packed in like crates. I grew accustomed to the stench, even though the humans complained of it constantly. To this day the smell of fresh leather is what reminds me of home more than anything else.”

For a moment neither of them spoke, then Drust said, “You sound like you’ve been away forever.”

“Oh, not so long,” Zevran said, his tone casual despite the melancholy threatening to seep into it. “It is my first time outside of Antiva, however, and the thought of never returning makes me think of it constantly.”

Drust couldn’t say the same, but then, Orzammar had never been good to him. Despite the Blight and Duncan’s death and the horrible things he had seen since coming to the surface, he was still pretty sure that becoming a Grey Warden was the best thing that had ever happened to him. So he just nodded, stroking Cadeyrn’s head, and turned his face a bit more into Zevran’s shoulder.

The elf adjusted his arm, settling into a more relaxed position. “You know, before I left, I was tempted to spend what little coin I possessed on a pair of boots I spotted in a store window,” he said. “Finest Antivan leather, perfect craftsmanship… ah, but I should never have left them. I thought, ‘ah, Zevran, you can buy them when you return for a job well done!’” He chuckled. “More the fool I, no?”

“I suppose things didn’t exactly work out as you’d intended,” Drust agreed. “Though I have to say, I’m pretty glad of that.” Zevran chuckled again, gently, and Drust smiled. “Your home is still there. You’ll get to go back someday.”

“That is a comforting thought,” Zevran admitted. “I suppose one never knows what is to come next. After all, how could I have suspected I would end up defeated by a handsome Grey Warden, a man who then spares my life? I could not.”

Drust bit back a grin. “Handsome, am I?”

“You are indeed,” Zevran said with admirable solemnity. “Now, if it’s all the same to you, I would prefer not to speak more of Antiva. It makes me wistful,” he said, “and hungry for a proper meal.”

“What’s wrong with my cooking?” Drust said, his mock outrage marred somewhat by the fact that he was still speaking into the assassin’s shirt.

“Nothing, my Grey Warden,” Zevran said with a laugh. “It’s just not Antivan.”

 _I’ll have to do something about that_ , Drust thought, and promptly joined his dog in slumber.

  


* * *

  


They moved on.

In their quest for resources to supply their growing army, Drust had taken a number of odd jobs that weren’t too far out of their way. Even those that wouldn’t get them much weren’t out of the question. Sten snapped at the wasted time, and Morrigan made scathing comments on the merits—or lack thereof—of altruism, but Drust paid them no mind: he could no more ignore the plight of a caravan of refugees than he could pass by a way to improve their chances against the Blight. And, when they stumbled across a merchant in a Frostback Mountains pass who offered them a golem’s control rod free of charge, he was all too happy for the excuse not to go back to Orzammar just yet.

“Are you always like this?” Zevran asked with some amusement as they turned south towards Honnleath.

“You should have seen him in the Dalish encampment,” Morrigan interjected. “Delivering messages, calming their animals, conversing with rhyming trees—you’d hardly guess he was a Grey Warden, with all this carrying on. He even helped solve a lover’s spat for one of the hunters.”

“The _apprentice_ hunter,” Sten corrected.

Morrigan threw her hands in the air. “How could I forget? ’Twas the very lynchpin of the dispute!”

Drust bore his companions’ sarcasm with good humour. “I wouldn’t be a Warden if I wasn’t interested in helping people,” he said mildly.

Morrigan scoffed and moved up to join Leliana and Wynne, and Sten soon followed with Cadeyrn at his heels and Alistair not far behind, but Zevran remained by Drust. “You spent some time with the Dalish, then?”

Drust cast him a look. “That’s right, I guess they’d be your people, wouldn’t they?”

Zevran shook his head. “I have always considered myself Antivan before all else,” he said. “I know little enough of the Dalish, other than the fact that my mother was one—or so I am told. She had fallen in love with an elven woodcutter and accompanied him back to the city, leaving her clan behind for good.” He shrugged, spreading his hands dramatically. “And there, of course, the woodcutter died of some filthy disease and my mother was forced into prostitution to pay off his debts.” He laughed dryly. “Oldest tale in the book.”

“It does sound familiar,” Drust said. “My father just left.”

“Of course, I don’t know that the woodcutter was my father,” Zevran said. “My mother was a whore, as you’ll recall. But neither did any of the other children in the whorehouse know their fathers, so I was not so unusual. I… didn’t know my mother, either, of course,” he added. “She died giving birth to me. My first victim, as it were.”

Though that had obviously been meant as a joke, it fell rather flat and Zevran clearly knew it. Drust lifted a hand to squeeze his arm in light comfort, and the assassin shot him a brief smile. “In any case,” he said, “we were all raised communally by the whores. It was a happy enough existence, ignoring the occasional beating, until eventually I was sold to the Crows. And that was that.”

“You seem oddly cheerful about it,” Drust said. He certainly couldn’t bring himself to look back on his childhood fondly.

“It could have been much worse,” Zevran said. “Shall I tell you about what happened to the other whorehouse boys who did not fetch a decent price with the Crows? Surely your life has not been so idyllic. People like you and I are hardly the product of happy lives of contentment, after all.”

“Yeah, you can say that again,” Drust muttered. Zevran grinned.

“My original point, before I got sidetracked with tales of my childhood, was that my mother’s Dalish nature was always a point of fascination for me,” he said. “Through all the years of my Crow training, the one thing of hers that I possessed was a pair of gloves. They were of Dalish make, I knew that much, and beautiful. I had to keep them hidden, of course, as we were not allowed such things. Eventually they were discovered, of course, and I never saw them again.”

He said it lightly, but still Drust’s heart ached. “That was cruel,” he said. “At least in the Carta no one cared if we had personal tokens.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Zevran said. “There has been plenty of joy in my life. I have expected nothing more.” He shrugged. “Still, even I eventually thought that it would be better for me if I ran off to join the famous Dalish when one of their clans drew near Antiva City. Naturally the reality did not live up at all to the fantasies I had constructed as a boy, staring at those gloves. But such is life.”

 _Gloves_ , Drust thought, and then— “Hold on a second,” he said, swinging his pack off his back and setting it down to rummage through it. They had found something, in the false camp near the Grand Oak’s clearing…

“What are you doing?” Zevran asked in clear tones of bewilderment.

Drust straightened triumphantly, holding out the items he had sought. “Gloves,” he said. “They’re Dalish gloves. Like your mother’s.”

“I…,” Zevran began, taking them and turning them over in his hands. All the air seemed to go out of his lungs. “Maker’s breath, you’re right. They are like my mother’s.” His eyes full of wonder, he stripped his gauntlets off and pulled one on, flexing his fingers and adjusting the cuff with a shaking hand. “The leather was less thick, and it had more embroidery… but these are very close. And quite handsome.”

“It was nothing,” Drust said, but he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “I picked them up back in the forest. They might as well go to someone who’ll make use of them.”

“Still,” Zevran said, pulling the other one on. “I appreciate the fact that you even thought of me. No one has simply… given me a gift before. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

For a moment they just looked at each other, both smiling shyly. The spell was broken when Alistair reappeared around the bend in the road fifty paces ahead. “Hey, you two!” he yelled. “You’re falling behind. Are we going after this golem or not?”

“I guess that’s our cue,” Drust muttered, grabbing his pack and swinging it back over his shoulders. Zevran laughed, but he laid a gentle touch on Drust’s arm before moving off.

 _Finally_ , Drust thought, _we’re getting somewhere_.

  


* * *

  


Of course, going after the golem wasn’t as simple as they’d hoped—but then again, it wasn’t like anything else had been, either. They made it through in the end, though, and when Drust and his companions returned to camp there was one less demon in the world, and one more member to their company. Leliana recounted the story of Shale’s recruitment over dinner, with frequent sarcastic interjections from Alistair—at least until Zevran magnanimously clapped a hand over his mouth and gestured for the bard to continue, whereupon Alistair extracted himself with great dignity and pompously stuffed his mouth full of rice. Shale sat nearby, apparently finding the conversation amusing; it spoke up only to contribute disparaging remarks about its former mage master and his wife, who it insisted on referring to as “the hag.”

Sten shook his head disapprovingly at the close of the tale. “No mage would ever be given such leniency in Seheron,” he said quietly. “Imprisoning a demon in one’s cellar—it does not bear thinking about.”

Drust waited until the rest of the conversation had moved on without them before turning to the Qunari. “You said something else about that in the Circle Tower,” he said. “You put your mages in prisons. Why?”

Sten looked down at him impassively. “We have no mages such as you do,” he said. “We have beasts in the shape of men, who perform tricks.”

“Beasts?” Drust echoed in bewilderment. “Why don’t you have mages?”

“We have mages. We simply don’t have the sort you do.”

Already Drust was beginning to feel out of his depth. “Why?”

“For the same reason we do not light our houses on fire,” Sten said drily, “or invite locusts into our fields.”

“Magic is hardly a swarm of locusts,” Drust protested. Then he thought back to the stinging swarm hexes he had endured from revenants and mages, and added, “Well, not usually. But it’s not always evil.”

Sten’s expression hadn’t changed, but he seemed to take Drust’s comments as an admission. “‘As a fish stranded by the tide knows the air or a drowning man knows the sea, so does a mage know magic,’” he recited.

Drust shrugged. “Everything is dangerous in excess,” he said.

Sten’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “Can you have just a little drowning? Some things come only in excess.”

Drust considered that, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He didn’t know the first thing about magic, but Wynne and Morrigan hardly seemed to be swept away in it. Of course, Wynne had had Circle training and the Templars keeping watch on her to ensure that, but Morrigan was an apostate, and had been trained by a mage who was almost certainly an abomination to boot. “Even if that were true, which I don’t believe,” he said, “it’s hardly fair not to give them the chance to master it.”

Sten surveyed him with a level gaze. “Is there some reason you insist on discussing this?” he said.

Drust shrugged. “I guess I’m still trying to figure you out.”

Sten sighed. “I suppose I must applaud your attempt to pursue knowledge, irritating as it may be.”

Drust laughed softly, nudging the Qunari’s leg with his boot. “Do you always have to be so difficult?” he said.

“Nothing worthwhile is easy.”

They lapsed into silence for a moment, and Drust relaxed, stretching out in front of the fire and resting his shoulders against one of the logs they’d dragged in for seating. Sten remained upright, straight-backed and cross-legged, looking down at him in solemn contemplation.

“I don’t think mages are as dangerous as you claim,” Drust said after a while.

Sten snorted. “Clearly, your Chantry agrees,” he said, in the driest tones Drust had ever heard.

Drust bit back all the uncomplimentary things he could say about the Chantry, and settled on the least abrasive. “It’s not my Chantry. And it’s more zealous than it needs to be. Most mages never turn to blood magic,” he said.

Sten regarded him, head cocked to one side to meet his eyes with a searching gaze, and began speaking quietly. “My people have a tale,” he said. “An ashkaari walked among the fields once, observing the labourers at work. Flax bloomed all around him, the colour of still water. The air rippled like a curtain.

“As he stopped to examine a blossom, a bee stung him on the hand. The ashkaari turned to a labourer for aid, and noticed for the first time the heavy gloves and coat she wore. As she tended to him, the ashkaari asked her why she was dressed so in such stifling heat. ‘To avoid your fate,’ she replied.

“‘But there are many thousands of bees here,’ the ashkaari said to her, ‘and only one stung me. Surely your caution is unwarranted?’

“‘The stinger is always a surprise,’ agreed the labourer, ‘but so is the bee that simply passes one by.’”

Drust had gotten so caught up in the melodic rise and fall of Sten’s voice that for a moment he didn’t notice the conclusion of the tale. He struggled to find the words to respond. As a parable, it had been well crafted: it was beautifully told, with a clear moral, and it would certainly give him something to think on—but even so he could not believe—he _would_ not believe—that the solution was to keep all mages under lock and key, or worse. But he had no way to express that to Sten, or none that the Qunari would understand, so instead he simply said, “That’s more words than I’ve ever heard you speak before.”

The sombre mood vanished instantly from Sten’s face, and he almost smiled. “I’ve been saving them up,” he said. For the first time Drust could remember seeing, he relaxed his posture, leaning back on his hands and extending his legs towards the fire. “Whatever your feelings on magic, Warden, I remain in your custody. I will follow you, even in this.”

Drust wasn’t sure he would ever fully come to understand Sten, but he was beginning to make his peace with that. “That’s good enough for me,” he said. Sten nodded, and together they sat in silence and watched the flickering firelight, surrounded by the gentle chatter of their companions in the growing dark.

  


* * *

  


They made their way back into the lowlands and reunited with Bodahn’s wagon, completing jobs and rooting out pockets of darkspawn as they went; if Drust noticed they were getting further away from Orzammar, he pretended not to notice. In Denerim they collected payment on several finished jobs, and then Drust took a company into the market district to restock their supplies. While Leliana haggled for the price of a ham and Wynne loaded Alistair down with bags of grain and a wheel of hard cheese, Drust slipped away and went in search of Cesar’s stall, glad that he had had the foresight not to bring Zevran along.

He returned to his companions with a bottle of verjuice on his arm, a package of ground Antivan pepper in his hand, and a single page covered in neat handwritten script tucked carefully into his pocket. Leliana was just finishing up and she turned to him with a smile, hefting a bag of root vegetables. “There you are!” she said. “Do we need anything else?”

Drust looked over at Alistair—now manfully hauling a good-sized ham, in addition to the packages Wynne had foisted on him—and grinned. “A few eggs for tonight,” he said. “And a bottle of white wine, if you can find one. Don’t worry, I’ll carry them.”

Sten already had a fire going when they returned to their camp outside the city walls, and Drust took over the evening meal, setting out the ham, wine, eggs, and verjuice in easy reach and telling Cadeyrn on no uncertain terms to leave them alone. He dug into his pack for his treasured bag of spices—still well stocked, as he replenished it piecemeal with whatever he could find anytime they stopped at a market—and pulled out the sachets he would need tonight. Then, consulting the note he had tipped Cesar twenty silver for, he got to work.

Zevran wandered over some time later as Drust was turning over the casserole in the pot. It thickened immediately, just like the recipe said it would, and Drust allowed himself a smile. “You’re right on time,” he said, filling a bowl and handing it to Zevran. “Here, tell me what you think.”

“It certainly smells good,” Zevran said, spooning a bite into his mouth. His eyes widened. “Is this—”

“Cesar called it ‘cacerola de carne,’” Drust said, conscious as he did that he was absolutely butchering the accent. “I don’t know if I made it right, and it should really have been pork, or beef, but he told me the spices to use and he even sold me some Antivan pepper out of his personal stock, and you said you wanted a proper meal, so—”

Zevran interrupted him with a kiss that tasted of cloves and sweet pepper and left Drust staggered when he pulled away. “It’s perfect,” Zevran said, taking a seat by the fire. “Thank you.”

“If I’d know that was all it would take to get a kiss I’d have tried this weeks ago,” Drust said weakly, and started doling out servings.

Wynne, Alistair, Leliana, and Sten joined them at the fire in short order; Shale did not, but settled down within listening distance, as was its custom. Morrigan came to serve herself, took one look at how close Drust was sitting to Zevran, and immediately walked off to eat her dinner alone. Somehow, Drust couldn’t bring himself to care.

When all the bowls had been scraped clean and Sten had fetched water to take his turn at the washing, Zevran tucked himself in behind Drust and said, “That was marvellous. You must allow me to repay you for it, surely.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Zevran,” Drust said. “Really. I wanted to do it.”

“Even so,” Zevran said, smiling, “I’m afraid I must insist.”

Drust leaned back into his embrace. “I suppose you could always tell us a story.”

“Oh, yes, a story!” Leliana said from the other side of the fire. “Tell us one of your adventures.”

“My adventures?” Zevran said with a laugh. “I’m hardly an old man just returned from across the ocean, am I? Shall I shake my fist at nearby children while I talk about the good old days?”

“Please don’t,” Wynne said mildly.

“You certainly talk like you’ve had adventures,” Leliana said.

Zevran chuckled. “Falling down a flight of stairs is an adventure. Falling into someone’s bed—also an adventure. I assume what you are asking for are professional anecdotes,” he said, resting his chin on the top of Drust’s head. “Let’s see. How about the largest battle I ever took part in? That would have been the slaughter of Prince Azrin. Did you hear of that down in these parts?”

“I doubt it,” Drust said.

That seemed to be the answer Zevran had expected. “Prince Azrin was fourth in line to the throne, you see,” he said. He was warming to the subject already. “He started off as eleventh, but worked his way up the old-fashioned method, by inheriting control of an entire Crow cell from his grandfather. After assassinating his way through the royal family, the king hired three other cells to take Prince Azrin down once and for all. I was in one of those cells.”

“Is this sort of thing common in Antiva?” Alistair said drily.

Leliana giggled. “Do you really have to ask?”

Zevran acknowledged her with a graceful tip of the head. “Antivan royalty is very much bound up in the Crows. You wouldn’t want it run by a bunch of _commoners_ , after all, would you?” Drust snorted at that, and Zevran chuckled. “This means they get involved in politics quite often,” he said. “This particular fight nearly bankrupted the nation, I understand. It almost ended up putting a Crow on the throne, a commoner… but that’s a whole different story. I played a very small part in the battle.”

“Seems like a strange way to run a country,” Drust said.

“Antiva might seem a bit odd in that way to outsiders,” Zevran agreed. “We take it in stride, however. Assassins are simply part of the landscape, so to speak.” He gave Drust a brief squeeze around his waist, then continued, “My part in the battle was entirely taken up trying to reach the Princess Ferenna, who had thrown in with her brother. I killed about eleven of her guards personally before I got knocked out a window.”

For a moment no one reacted to that, and then Leliana let out a peal of laughter and almost toppled over. Soon Alistair, Wynne, and Drust were laughing as well; even Sten, who had been silently washing bowls for the duration of the story, seemed to have an amused turn to his lips.

Struggling to speak around his own mirth, Zevran brought the tale to its close. “I landed in the river and nearly drowned,” he said. “I was fished out by some urchins who robbed me blind. Made off with my boots, too,” he added, setting off a renewed burst of laughter. He shrugged theatrically. “Well, at least they didn’t cut my throat,” he said. “And there you have it. That was my part in history.”

“You’re lucky you weren’t killed,” Drust said, once he had calmed his breathing enough to respond coherently.

“It’s true. I lead a charmed life,” Zevran said. “One of the prostitutes that raised me was a fortune teller. She said I wouldn’t die young—she was rather startled by that.” He briefly pressed his lips to Drust’s hair, setting Drust’s heart to fluttering, then released him. “But there you go. Tale told. Now I intend to go to bed before I tell any more embarrassing stories.”

“Oh, are you sure?” Leliana said, her eyes sparkling. “But that one was so endearing! You would make a fine bard, you know.”

“A generous compliment, my dear woman,” Zevran said, getting to his feet and making her an elaborate bow. “But, no, I think one was plenty. Until tomorrow, then.” He met Drust’s eyes for a moment, directing a slow smile his way, and then left the circle of firelight. Drust watched him walk towards his tent, feeling giddy and slightly lightheaded.

Leliana’s voice cut through his daze. “You know, you don’t have bad taste,” she said, her expression only slightly teasing.

Drust couldn’t help but agree.

  


* * *

  


The weather cooled as they travelled west into the Bannorn until one morning Drust awoke to find the world outside his tent blanketed in a thin layer of white. As he stood there staring at it in dumbfounded fascination—snow, he remembered, this was called snow—there was a shout from the other side of camp and Alistair came into view, covering his head and laughing as he ran while Leliana and Zevran pelted him with snowballs that splattered ineffectively against his armour. Cadeyrn brought up the rear, barking joyfully and making playful snaps at Zevran’s heels, while Sandal giggled and clapped in delight from the sidelines.

Drust couldn’t help it. He started laughing. “If his armour rusts, I’m making you clean it,” he called, picking his way towards the campfire. Wynne had relit it with the wood left over from the night before, and Drust nodded his thanks as he accepted a pot of water from her and started on the morning’s porridge.

Soon Leliana sat down next to him, her eyes dancing and her cheeks flushed with the cold. Drust eyed her suspiciously. “Come to torment me instead, have you?”

“Of course,” she said cheerfully, and stuffed a handful of snow down the back of his shirt. He yelped; cackling, she jumped up and ran away.

After that, there was nothing for it. Drust tackled her to the ground, pinning her arms behind her back as Alistair exacted his revenge by dumping yet more snow into her hair. Cadeyrn came bounding over at her shriek of dismay, crashing into Alistair and bowling all three of them over. Out of their reach, Zevran laughed until he couldn’t keep himself upright.

“Savages,” Wynne said, and took over the breakfast preparations.

They were slow to start that morning. Drust and Alistair continued their lively war against Leliana and Zevran as they ate and packed up their gear, all four of them frequently impeded by the one-canine field hazard that was Cadeyrn. Wynne had switched her leather combat gloves for a pair of red mittens, and was making frequent exasperated noises as she dropped things or fumbled her grip through the bulky wool. Morrigan had unearthed a heavy winter cloak from somewhere in her packs and had swathed herself in it, pulling the sleeves down to cover her hands; and despite putting on a stoic face as he worked to break camp on his usual schedule, Sten was obviously miserable in the cold. Only Shale seemed unaffected by the weather, proclaiming its superiority to the squishy flesh creatures it travelled with as it strutted triumphantly around the camp. Drust, eyeing the size of the tracks it left behind, informed it that it was responsible for any trail-breaking duties the company required.

At last Drust left off throwing snowballs at Zevran, abandoning Alistair to his fate in order to help Sten take down the last of the tents. The Qunari exclaimed in frustration as Leliana raced past with Cadeyrn in hot pursuit. “I do not understand the purpose of this,” he said. “We are wasting time with all this foolishness.”

“Let them have their fun, Sten,” Drust said as he folded a tent into a compact bundle. “We haven’t had much opportunity to relax lately.”

“And nor should we,” Sten snapped. “The Blight is hardly going to wait while we run around in the snow.”

“Maybe not,” Drust said, “but if we can’t take the time for this, then everything we’re fighting for is pointless.”

Sten stared at him in silence for a long moment. “I do not understand,” he said.

Drust scratched his beard, trying to figure out how to put it into words in a way that Sten could make sense of; then he remembered the Qunari’s parable. “You told me one of your people’s tales, when I didn’t understand about mages,” he said. “Could I tell you a tale for this?”

Sten nodded, and Drust scrambled to turn the story he was thinking of into something with a proper narrative. “There was a jeweller who sold her wares in the commons of Orzammar,” he began. “She wasn’t wealthy, but she did good trade, and though she couldn’t afford to work with gems of high value, she had great skill, and the pieces she made were beautiful.

“One day one of the casteless came into her shop. ‘Leave,’ she said to him. ‘I have nothing you could afford, and you’ll drive off my customers.’

“‘But I am a customer,’ the casteless said, and held up a leather purse. He emptied it onto the counter, and seven silver rolled out.

“The jeweller was shocked at this, because dwarves with no caste were forbidden from legitimate work and could never earn enough to lift themselves out of poverty. At first she thought he must have been a thief, but the casteless told her that for nearly three years he had set aside one or two coppers a night until finally he had enough to take it to a moneychanger. And the jeweller understood then how hopeless the casteless’ lives were, and was moved to pity.

“‘But why would you spend your money here?’ she asked. ‘It seems a waste to buy jewellery, when you could have used those coppers to buy food for your family. Even now you could save the silver in case you need it someday.’

“But the casteless said, ‘How would that change anything? Two coppers a day wouldn’t buy us enough food to make a difference, and what’s the point of saving money if I never spend what I have? My sister deserves something beautiful. At least this way she’ll have one nice thing to take her mind off our poverty.’”

His story finished, Drust fell silent, nervously biting the inside of his cheek as he waited for Sten’s reaction. The Qunari seemed deep in thought, the tent forgotten at his feet as he considered the tale. The noise of the ongoing snowball fight seemed dim and far away.

“You are saying that we must have something good in the midst of conflict in order to make it bearable,” Sten said at last.

Drust exhaled a relieved breath. “Yes. And if you don’t reach for the good, even when it seems impossible, the conflict will never end.”

Sten made a skeptical noise, but he nodded and resumed packing up the tent. “This is a tale your people tell the children?” he asked. “To see them through difficult times?”

At that, Drust shook his head, smiling sadly. “That was me, Sten,” he said. “I saved my coppers for three years because I wanted a gift for my sister. She never took that necklace off.” Sten turned to look at him, and Drust dropped his eyes, staring down at his hands rather than meeting that searching gaze. “The Blight is hopeless, and you’re right, we really don’t have time to waste. But Dust Town was just as bad. Can you blame me if I’ve learned to take joy where I can find it?”

For a long moment Sten said nothing, and then Drust felt strong fingers on his jaw. He tipped his head back, looking up into Sten’s glorious violet eyes, and swallowed hard.

“Warden,” Sten said, once he was sure he had Drust’s attention. “I do not pretend to understand your people or your customs. This is not the way the Qunari do things. But if you say this is necessary, then it is necessary.”

Drust could barely breathe. He imagined that Sten could feel his pulse pounding in his throat. He had no idea what to say, so he just nodded, caught in the intensity of Sten’s gaze.

“And do not apologize for it,” Sten continued, his voice low and fierce. “Stand firm in yourself. I do not require your explanations, only your orders.”

Drust’s voice caught in his throat the first time he made to speak. He tried again. “Then let’s get this tent packed up,” he said. “We need to get going. I think they’ve had long enough, don’t you?”

“Indeed,” Sten said drily, dropping his hand, and just like that the spell was broken.

Drust crouched next to him, gathering up the corners of the tent, and before his nerve could fail him he said, “And Sten?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

The Qunari’s answering smile was more relaxed than Drust had ever seen it. “There is no need to thank me, Warden,” he said. “Just don’t expect me to join in.”

Drust laughed. “Wouldn’t that be the day.”

Together they bundled the tent into a neat package, stowing it with the rest of the supplies and doing a quick sweep of the campsite to make sure nothing had been lost. Despite the ongoing battle, their gear had been packed up with surprising efficiency, and Bodahn and Sandal’s wagon was also ready for travel; apparently not even a snowball fight was enough to distract from the importance of their task.

At some point during Drust and Sten’s conversation, Leliana and Zevran’s faction had declared a truce with Alistair; the three of them were now engaged in hurling snowballs at Shale, who was responding by lobbing great handfuls of snow with deadly accuracy. Cadeyrn bounded back and forth across the field, snapping indiscriminately at their missiles and barking joyfully every time he got a bite of snow. Wynne, now sporting a knitted scarf in addition to the mitts, was sitting well out of the way on top of her pack; Morrigan, who had evidently attempted to do the same, was instead muttering in disgust as she wiped snow from her cloak.

When Drust hiked a brow at her, she just rolled her eyes. “Alistair,” she said, by way of explanation. She shook the last of the snow from her person and straightened up. “Shall we be off, then?”

Drust nodded and cupped a hand around his mouth. “Oy, you lot!” he yelled. “Pack it up, we’re moving out.”

A well-aimed snowball struck him in the chest. _Zevran_ , he thought. _Of course it was._

“You know,” he said to Sten in conversational tones as he wiped the snow from his armour, “I’m beginning to reconsider the wisdom of letting them have their fun.”

“Warden,” Sten said, sounding very long-suffering, “I’m sure I could have told you that.”

  


* * *

  


It snowed again as they continued west, and before long everyone—even Cadeyrn—had lost their enthusiasm for snowball fights. Soon the entire company had followed Wynne’s example, trading the flexibility of leather for the warmth of woollen mittens that they purchased in the next mid-sized town. They made it difficult for Drust to grip his blades, but it was a fair trade-off: this was his first winter since he’d come to the surface, and he had never been so cold in his life. And besides, he reasoned, any sensible bandits could surely recognize that this was hardly ideal weather for marauding.

But it wasn’t bandits they found—it was one of Cailan’s old honour guard. There wasn’t much they could do for him but make him comfortable, but before he died he passed on word of a cache hidden in the fortress of Ostagar. Their group had been bound for Gherlen’s Pass, but at that news Drust was all too willing to turn aside once more. And so they started south again, leaving the relative safety of the Bannorn and making their way back towards Blight-ravaged territory.

Sten caught up with him on the road, disapproval evident in every line on his face. “Is this delay needful?” he demanded. “Do not think I haven’t noticed your reluctance to return to your homeland.”

There was nothing Drust could say to that, because Sten was completely right. “We’ll go there as soon as this is over, I promise,” he said. “But these papers of Cailan’s… Ostagar is where this all started. This could be really important.”

He could tell Sten wasn’t entirely satisfied by that, but the Qunari let it alone and the party carried on. They left Bodahn behind to ply his trade north of the Hinterlands, arranging to meet up later, and worked their way down towards the Wilds. When Morrigan judged that they were a day and a half out of Ostagar, Drust stopped them and selected his team for the ruins. That he was taking Alistair, there was no question; Wynne had also asked to return, and he chose Leliana as his third.

“Stay here,” he ordered the rest of his companions as they prepared to leave. “Keep watch at night and defend yourselves if they attack, but _don’t_ go looking for them. I don’t want you getting in over your heads without me or Alistair there to warn you.”

“Go,” Zevran said. “The sooner you depart, the sooner we can leave. We’ll be fine.”

Drust kissed him firmly. “We’ll be back soon.”

It was a hard four days for the company. They fought their way through several bands of darkspawn on the road to Ostagar, and more once they reached the fortress itself, but it wasn’t the battle that wore on them the most. Instead it was the memories that reared up to pierce Drust’s throat and lungs—here was the field there the injured had been laid out; here was the quartermaster’s shop, transformed into some kind of darkspawn altar; here was the pen where he had first met Cadeyrn. Though it had been blocked off, Duncan’s campfire was just as he had left it, and Drust remembered suddenly the last thing he had said before going to the battlefield that would be his grave: “Maker watch over us all.” It was all too much. Angrily Drust wiped away his tears, and they went in search of Cailan’s cache.

When they at last made it back to their camp, it was with a king’s correspondence tucked in Drust’s shirt-front, Maric’s glorious sword at Alistair’s belt, Cailan’s shield and golden armour on their backs—and a beautiful pair of dragonbone blades, rescued from the body of a vanquished ogre and returned to the Wardens’ order by Drust’s own hand.

He sat with Zevran at dinner that night, keenly feeling the need for closeness after the fresh reminder of Duncan’s loss. The elf could tell that something was wrong, but he waited until they had finished eating before he put his arm around Drust’s shoulders.

“Are you all right?” Zevran said.

Drust sighed, leaning into him, and closed his eyes against the sting of tears. “I’d rather not talk about it yet,” he said. “Could you distract me? It’s been a long few days.”

“Of course,” Zevran said, pressing his lips to Drust’s hairline. “Let’s see. My second mission ever for the Crows was a bit intriguing, if you’d like to hear of that. I was sent to kill a mage who had been meddling in politics.”

That surprised Drust, and he happily seized on the diversion. “The Crows were willing to anger the Circle of Magi?” he said.

Zevran chuckled. “In Antiva, nobody is too important to escape the reach of the Crows. They have killed kings and queens. That is simply how it is.” He shrugged. “As it turned out, the mage in question was quite a delightful young woman. Long, divine legs, as I recall. I caught her in a carriage on her way to escape to the provinces.”

“You would notice her legs,” Drust muttered, and Zevran laughed.

“Yes, well,” the assassin said. “After I killed her guard, she got down on her hands and knees and begged for her life… rather aptly, I might add,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows in such an overdone manner that there was no mistaking his implication. “So I joined her in the carriage for the night and left the next morning.”

Despite himself, Drust couldn’t keep the amusement from his voice. “And she didn’t try to kill you?”

“Well, yes. Twice, actually,” Zevran said. “Then she decided to try to use me instead. The woman had actually convinced me to speak to the Crows on her behalf. What can I say? I was young and foolish at the time.”

“You’re still foolish,” Drust informed him.

Zevran ignored that. “Then, as I was kissing her goodbye to return to Antiva City, she slipped on the threshold and fell backwards out of the carriage,” he said. “Broke her neck. Shame, really, but at least it happened quickly.”

Drust couldn’t help it: he started laughing. “So you didn’t even kill her yourself in the end?”

“Not actually, no,” Zevran said, his lips tugging up into a grin. “I was a bit unimpressed with the development, at first. Then I found out that she had told the driver to take her to Genellan instead. She had planned to lose me in the provinces after all. I would have looked very foolish to the Crows.” He shrugged grandly. “As it was, my master was very impressed that I had done such a fine job of making it look like an accident, the Circle of Magi was unaware of foul play, and everyone was happier all around.”

Drust snorted. “I’m beginning to suspect that your entire career as an assassin has been founded on sheer dumb luck,” he said.

Zevran clapped a hand to his chest, his face a mask of exaggerated shock. “My dear Grey Warden!” he cried. “You wound me!”

“Oh, I do, do I?” Drust said. He poked him in the ribs. “Tell me, do these sorts of things happen to you often?”

“What, like being spared by a benevolent mark who then helps me escape from the Crows?” Zevran said innocently. “Yes, it does seem to happen now and again, doesn’t it?” He chuckled. “It was after that mission that I learned that one needn’t let a pretty face go to one’s head. Professionalism was key. That’s my moral of the day, you see.”

“Oh, is that so?” Drust said impishly. “Are you saying you _never_ mix business with pleasure?”

“Hmm,” Zevran said, and kissed his forehead again. “Well, there is you. Every rule has its exception. But I’ll point out that you did have to capture me and tie me up first.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I never tied you up,” Drust said.

“Why, you’re right,” Zevran said, the very picture of earnest accommodation. “We could always remedy that.”

Drust hesitated. So far their conversation had just been playful banter, an admirably crafted distraction to take his mind off things, and it was entirely possible that Zevran’s last remark had only been more of the same. If that was all he’d intended, Drust ran the risk of making things awkward between them if he tried to push for more. But on the other hand, Zevran had been flirting with him since practically before he had joined their company, and Drust had never heard him make a comment that sounded so overtly like an invitation.

The thought of Zevran dressed in rope and little else sent a hot flare of _want_ shooting through him.

“If you’re offering,” Drust said slowly, through the roar of his pulse in his ears, “I have some extra rope in my pack.”

For a moment Zevran just stared at him, eyes wide and lips parted slightly in shock. Drust wanted nothing more than to surge forward and kiss the soft gasp from his mouth, but he restrained himself, his fingers digging into his thigh.

“You’re serious,” Zevran said at last.

Drust blinked. “Of course I’m serious,” he said. “Did you think I was only flirting for the fun of it?”

“I thought—” Zevran began, and for a moment his eyes flickered towards the other side of the camp, but then he shook his head. “Never mind. If you are inviting me into your bed, my Grey Warden, certainly I am not of a mind to refuse you. Though perhaps we ought to leave the rope to next time.”

Grinning absurdly, Drust hooked his hand into the collar of Zevran’s shirt, tugging him down until their faces were level. “Next time, is it? Don’t you think you’re getting ahead of yourself?”

“As if you could restrain yourself to but a single encounter,” Zevran said, winding his arms around Drust’s shoulders.

“As if,” Drust agreed, and pulled him into a kiss.

This was not like the kisses they had shared before: this was electric, hungry, sending a shockwave of desire crashing through Drust’s ribcage. Zevran moaned against his mouth and parted his lips, his hands tightening on Drust’s shoulders, and Drust gripped his waist and proceeded to chase down every stray daydream he’d had about kissing the elf senseless.

Zevran was flushed when Drust released him, his lips full and dark and gloriously bitten. “My, my, you certainly don’t pull your punches,” he said.

“Just wait,” Drust said, and nipped at his mouth again. “Care to join me in my tent?”

“Oh? Is there something in your tent that needs assassinating?” Zevran said breathlessly. “That is my specialty, or so I’m told.”

Drust laughed at that, untangling himself from Zevran’s arms and pulling him to his feet. “I bet you’re good at a lot of things.”

“I could even demonstrate,” Zevran said, and happily followed him away from the fire.

Once inside, they paused only long enough for Drust to light a lantern and for both of them to divest themselves of their boots and winter cloaks; then Drust pushed Zevran down onto the bedroll, straddling his lap and catching his lips once more. Zevran met him eagerly, returning his kisses with a fierce enthusiasm even as he yanked Drust’s shirt from his belt with clever fingers. He kissed like he was drowning in it, like nothing in the world could compel him to come up for air, and it was all Drust could do not to let himself be swallowed in those depths.

He pulled away from Zevran’s mouth with a sharp tug on his lower lip, winding his hand into his hair and pulling his head back to suck a bruise into the hollow of his throat. Zevran gasped, his short fingernails raking up Drust’s spine, and Drust growled against his collar and shoved him down, pinning him by one wrist as he bent to bite his way down his neck. The sinuous way Zevran arched beneath him was going to haunt his fantasies for months. Drust groaned and released his wrist to start undoing the collar of his shirt.

Zevran’s breath hitched. “Wait,” he said suddenly, his hand coming up to grip Drust’s forearm. “Wait. Just a second.”

Drust’s hands stilled. Even though every nerve in his body was screaming for closeness, he sat back to look Zevran in the eye. “Please don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet,” he said plaintively.

Mercifully, Zevran laughed, though it sounded a little bit strangled. “No, no, it’s not that,” he said. “There is just—well, probably I should have mentioned this before we came into the tent, but I got carried away, and—no matter. Do you remember, some time ago, when we spoke of noble hunters, and—and why your boss did not see fit to outfit you as such?”

“Yes?” Drust said, completely bewildered and making no effort to hide it.

Zevran’s grip tightened briefly on his arm. “You mentioned—men who can bear children. By which I can only assume you mean men who were born with the more typically female parts, but who nevertheless live as men, yes?”

“Zevran,” Drust said firmly, “please get to the point.”

“Well, I just—thought you should know that I am one such man,” Zevran said, taking a deep breath, “in case—in case you were anticipating—something different.”

For a long moment Drust just blinked down at him in confusion. “Okay?” he said tentatively.

“‘Okay?’ That’s it?” Zevran said. “This sort of thing is hardly unheard of in Antiva, but it is not usually so well received.”

“What’s to receive?” Drust said, now well and truly lost. “You’re a man. Am I missing something?”

Zevran’s expression was a picture, simultaneously confused and mistrustful and relieved. “Only that some would not consider me so, based on the body I was born to.” His grip on Drust’s arm softened, and he slid his palm down to cover the back of his hand. “You—truly do not object?”

Drust shook his head. “We have a saying: ‘the Stone will tell,’” he said. “It means that someone meant to be a man, or meant to be a woman, will be as they were meant no matter how they were born. I’ve had lovers like you before. I didn’t know it was something surfacers cared about.”

“Oh. Well,” Zevran said. “I suppose that was a little anticlimactic.”

“Does that mean I can go back to undressing you now?”

Zevran freed his hand immediately. “Please,” he said. “By all means.”

Drust wasted no time. Zevran watched him with sultry eyes, arching his back and lifting his arms to allow Drust to pull his shirt over his head. Beneath it he was wearing a fitted undershirt—of a different style than Drust had previously seen, but one whose purpose was familiar to him. He brushed his hand over it, feeling the callouses on his fingertips catch on the stiff material.

“Do you prefer to keep this on?” he said.

Zevran hesitated. “It would be more comfortable to remove it, certainly, but—would you be terribly offended if I laid on my stomach, instead?”

“Not at all,” Drust assured him, shifting onto his knees to allow Zevran to change position. He sat up, pulling Drust into a brief, warm kiss, then turned his back and yanked the undershirt over his head with a practiced motion. Drust watched as he resettled, his eyes lingering on the tracery of lines and symbols that decorated Zevran’s skin, and ran his fingers down his spine. The elf shivered.

Drust’s hand came to rest on the curve of his ass, his thumb rubbing circles into the meat of his upper thigh. “And what about, ah—”

Zevran laughed breathlessly, his hips shifting under Drust’s touch. “My dear Grey Warden,” he said, “as for the rest, I invite you to do as you see fit. I hardly intend to deny myself one of the greatest pleasures the Maker has seen fit to grant us.”

With a low chuckle, Drust gripped Zevran’s thighs, forcing them off the bedroll so he could slide the leggings from his hips. His smallclothes proved even less of an obstacle, and soon Drust had stripped him beautifully bare. Pausing only to remove his own shirt and belt, he once again straddled Zevran’s hips, bending to press a hard kiss to his shoulderblade. The assassin curved towards his mouth, pushing his ass back against Drust’s groin.

Drust couldn’t help it—he rolled his hips, groaning at the pressure on his cock as Zevran near-simultaneously let out a shaky moan. Drust bit down on his shoulder, leaving swiftly fading teeth marks and the sharp point of a bruise when he pulled away. The dark flush of blood just beneath the surface of Zevran’s warm brown skin left him dizzy with desire, and he bent his head, sucking a much larger mark right next to the first. Zevran made a throaty sound, pushing himself up onto his elbows to force himself closer to Drust’s mouth, and Drust took it as an invitation, marking a trail of bruises down his spine as he rocked his hips slowly against Zevran’s ass.

Soon Zevran was squirming beneath him, making a breathy noise that was halfway between a laugh and a moan. “Oh, amante, don’t tease me so,” he said.

Drust sat up, tracing a hand across the marks he had left. “But I like you like this,” he protested. He pressed his thumb into one of the bruises, and Zevran gasped. “You’re so beautiful when you’re wanting.”

The soft chuckle that escaped Zevran’s lips was perfectly calculated to be alluring. “I’d be more beautiful with you fucking me,” he purred, his hips shifting as he tried to rub against Drust’s cock. For a moment Drust was tempted to just let him do it, but he held himself in check, pressing a hand down on the small of Zevran’s back and keeping him still.

“You should learn patience,” he said, smiling, and leaned down to press an open-mouthed kiss to the side of Zevran’s neck.

“I’ve tried that,” Zevran said with a laugh. He tipped his head to the side, lifting a hand to pull his hair over his shoulder. “You may have noticed it didn’t exactly take.”

“No?” Drust said. He paused, as if considering. “I suppose I’ll have to teach you, then.”

Zevran laughed. “Don’t you dare.”

Drust chuckled, but his tone was decidedly less playful than it had been only moments before. “Are you sure?” he said. “You might enjoy it.” He braced his weight on one arm so he could run his fingers into Zevran’s hair, turning his head to see his expression. “I could bring you to the edge of release and leave you there, over and over until you’re begging for it. I could make you desperate for my cock until you’d do anything to have it. I could make you come harder than you ever have before,” he said, and he wasn’t sure if that was a threat or a promise. “All you have to do is be _patient_.”

Zevran’s cheeks were flushed red, his lips parted, his eyes hazy, and Drust could feel an answering glow of warmth spreading across his chest. He smirked. “Do you want me to stop?”

Zevran hesitated, then dropped his head into his arms with a moan. “No,” he whispered. “Maker, no. Please, my sweet, I want to scream for you.”

Drust sucked in an unsteady breath and rewarded him for that by grinding down again. He worked his way back down his body, leaving more marks across his shoulders and ribs as Zevran shuddered beneath him. Then he moved back, gripping his legs with both hands and pushing them apart.

Zevran was slick between his thighs, and he trembled minutely as Drust brushed his fingers over the soft skin there. He made a low sound when Drust touched him directly, trying to press down against his hand, but Drust stilled him with a firm squeeze to the back of his leg.

“Patience,” he said.

Zevran groaned. “You ask too much of me.”

Drust hushed him and set to exploring with his hands, taking his time even when his own arousal urged him to make haste. He ran his fingers along the hollows where Zevran’s thighs met his groin, trailed through the sparse golden hair that grew on his pubic mound, traced around his opening and delicately parted the folds that protected it. Here was the source of his slickness, and Drust nearly groaned when the musky scent hit his nostrils. He pressed a kiss to the swell of Zevran’s hip and pushed one finger inside him.

Zevran cried out, arching his hips and squeezing around him. Drust worked at him slowly but thoroughly, letting Zevran grind down against his hand, and soon added a second finger. He kept going until Zevran seemed to be opening up to him again, and then slid his fingers out, dragging his hand down.

Zevran moaned. “Oh, you are cruel.”

“Patience,” Drust repeated. “I’m not done yet.”

He had found the little bump that nestled beneath Zevran’s pubic mound, and carefully he traced around it, exposing it to his touch. He stroked at it, then caught it between his fingers, the wetness that still clung to them making for an easy glide. Zevran gasped and bucked against him, clutching at the blankets, and Drust rubbed at him in measured circles, encouraging him to thrust into his hand.

Soon Zevran was shaking beneath him, his breath coming in soft cries, and Drust was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate through the tightness in his trousers. He increased the pace of his strokes, ignoring the ache in his wrist in favour of the way Zevran writhed, the way his legs trembled with Drust’s every movement, the way his hips tilted as he tried to bring his hand closer. Watching that, he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to last himself.

“Stone below, Zevran, you’re beautiful,” he murmured.

Zevran laughed, but it was a thin, shaky sound. “I told you,” he said. His body shuddered against Drust’s fingers, and he moaned. “Just wait until you see me come—”

“Oh, no, we can’t have that just yet,” Drust interrupted, and removed his hand. Zevran groaned in frustration and jerked his hips, but Drust straddled his thighs and pinned him down, bending to kiss the small of his back. “Hush. What do I keep saying?"

“Yes, yes, patience, I know,” Zevran said, but despite the words his voice was fond. “You’ll forgive me if I’m not feeling especially patient at the moment.”

“Smart mouth, too,” Drust said in an observational tone.

“My greatest asset, or so I am told.”

“We’ll see,” Drust said. He kissed Zevran’s spine again, then sat up, trailing his hands down his sides. The assassin’s body had calmed again, and Drust slid his hand back down between Zevran’s legs. This time he didn’t start slow: right away he pushed inside him and began a steady rhythm; when the slide of two fingers became too easy, he added a third, and then a fourth. Zevran gasped at the stretch and drove himself down onto Drust’s hand, and for the first time the noise he made sounded almost like a whine.

“I’ve got you,” Drust said softly, stroking the back of his thigh with his free hand. Zevran whined again, clenching around him, and Drust felt that sound go straight to his dick. He bit his lip, breathing heavily as he reined himself back in. “Oh, Zevran, the things you do to me…”

“Oh, oh—please, I’m so close,” Zevran gasped. “Don’t stop yet, don’t—”

But Drust withdrew his touch and Zevran groaned again, squirming against the bedroll in desperation. Drust rubbed his back soothingly, leaning over him to brush feather-light kisses across his shoulders. “Shh,” he said. “I’m going to make you come, Zevran, I promise it’ll be worth the wait—you’re doing so well—”

“Please, please, please,” Zevran whispered.

“One more time,” Drust said. “One more time and I’ll let you come—can you do that for me?” Zevran nodded, and Drust kissed his shoulder. “Good. Good. You’re doing so well,” he repeated. “Are you ready?”

Zevran was still trembling, but the tension had gone out of his body. He nodded again, his fists clutching at the blankets, and once more Drust brought his hand down to touch him. He was so slick he was practically dripping, so wound up that Drust could feel Zevran’s pulse pounding between his legs, and the strokes Drust gave him were broad and sloppy, but he didn’t seem to mind, rutting down into his hand with a shameless need.

Once more he kept it up until Zevran was shaking around him, and once more he stopped before he could build up to his release. The sound Zevran made when he pulled back this time was closer to a sob than a groan, but he quieted under Drust’s touch, begging wordlessly with the arc of his spine. Struggling with his breathing, Drust fumbled for the button on his pants, and with unsteady hands he stripped himself of his remaining clothing.

Zevran practically whimpered at the feeling of Drust’s bare cock against his ass, curving up towards him, and it was beyond Drust’s frayed control not to grind down on him. He had never seen anything so beautiful as Zevran wanton and desperate beneath him.

“By the ancestors, Zevran, if you could see yourself,” he whispered, stroking his hand down the bruises on the assassin’s back.

“Please,” Zevran said, “please, fuck me, make me come, please—”

“I’ve got you,” Drust said. He shifted back, taking himself in hand and lining up, and slid home.

Zevran jolted at that, clutching at the blankets, his mouth opened in a shuddery gasp. Drust bent over him, pressing his forehead into the hollow between his shoulderblades, and started up a rough rhythm. He wasn’t going to last. He had waited for this for so long, and then held off, teased and delayed, and now at last he had Zevran under him and it was so much better than he had ever imagined. He braced himself, wrapped one arm around Zevran’s waist and pressed his palm flat against his stomach, and fucked him hard.

Zevran had started coming undone as soon as Drust entered him, his cries muffled only by him pressing his own face into the bedroll; within minutes that was no longer enough, his voice breathy and loud in the confines of the tent. Briefly it occurred to Drust to wonder what their companions would make of that, but it was a fleeting thought. The only thing that mattered now was the feeling of Zevran stretched around him, compliant and desperate, his skin hot to Drust’s every touch. Anything else was beyond his capacity to care.

“Please don’t stop,” Zevran said. His voice was shaking. “Please, please let me come this time, please don’t stop—”

All the air left Drust’s lungs. He sucked in a breath and pulled Zevran closer, one hand tight against his pelvis, the snap of his hips not slowing at all. “You’re so good for me,” he said, mouthing at Zevran’s shoulder. “Come for me, sweetheart, come on, I want to feel you come for me.”

Zevran almost sobbed at that, his whole body tensing, and Drust could feel him tightening around him. Once more he buried his face in his shoulder and pounded into him, and in seconds Zevran let out a shout, his hips jerking frantically as his release crashed through him. Drust lifted a hand to his mouth and Zevran accepted his fingers gratefully, biting down and holding on, and Drust guided him through his climax as he shook himself apart.

Only once the aftershocks had passed did Drust ease off. He pulled out with a groan—and oh, ancestors, that was harder than it should have been, all he wanted was Zevran pinned beneath him again and again for the rest of his life—and wrapped his hand around his cock, rapidly stroking himself to his own release. Within moments he could feel it coiling in his belly, tighter and tighter until with a moan he spilled himself across Zevran’s ass and thighs. The elf whimpered softly at that, his eyes fluttering open, and Drust’s heart had never felt so full as it did at the way Zevran reached for him.

He collapsed down on the bedroll and opened his arms, and Zevran curled into him without hesitation, pressing his face into Drust’s chest. Drust murmured soft reassurances, stroking his hair and his back; gradually Zevran calmed, his arms winding loosely around Drust’s waist. Drust cradled his jaw, tipping his head back and kissing him gently, trailing his lips over his forehead, his eyes, the bridge of his nose, his mouth. When Zevran began to respond, Drust relaxed, knowing he had brought him safely through it.

“You were so good for me,” he whispered, kissing Zevran’s lips again. He felt the assassin smile.

“Of course I was,” Zevran said, his voice still slow and sated. “Don’t you know I’m amazing?”

Drust couldn’t find it within himself to be flippant about that. “Yes,” he said.

Zevran’s eyes widened for a brief moment, but he covered it up with a laugh. “See? I knew this would happen eventually.” He stretched out, pillowing his head on Drust’s shoulder happily. “I should have warned you right from the moment you refused to kill me. It was inevitable.”

It made Drust’s chest ache, to see Zevran deflecting so sincere a compliment with his usual humour, but it was a soft and distant ache; he was sleepy and satisfied, and could allow the elf his defences. “And here I thought I seduced you,” he said.

“Oh-ho!” Zevran chuckled. “Such subtlety in your seductive charms that I was not even aware of them. A work of art in motion, perhaps?” He raised his hand, tracing it idly down Drust’s chest, his eyes following the path of his fingers. “So, then… as the priestess so famously said to the handsome actor: what now?”

Drust bit his cheek. He knew what he wanted, but was Zevran ready to give him that? Would he ever be ready? They had grown close over the last few months, closer than Drust had dared hope for at first, but the assassin in his arms had so many walls left standing.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Zevran didn’t look up. “Allow me to make it simple for you, my Grey Warden,” he said. “What comes next is entirely up to you. I was raised to take my pleasures where they could be found, for they do not come very often. I shall ask nothing more of you than you are willing to give.”

 _My heart and soul_ , Drust thought, but the words stuck in his throat. He took a deep breath. “And what about love?”

As he’d suspected, he’d gone too far. Zevran recoiled, half sitting up, his arms curled around his chest. “I was born of a whore and bred as an assassin,” he said. His voice was shaky under the anger, and he wouldn’t meet Drust’s eyes. “All I know is of pleasure and death. What room is there in these things for love?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Drust said. He lifted a hand, tentative, but Zevran didn’t pull away, and so he brushed his fingers carefully over his arm. “Stay,” he begged, “please stay. I won’t ask anything of you either.”

For a moment Zevran said nothing, but then his shoulders relaxed minutely and he leaned into Drust’s touch. “As long as we are agreed on that,” he said.

“Whatever you want,” Drust said. “Just don’t go.”

Another brief hesitation, and then Zevran laid back down with a soft sound that Drust did his best to pretend wasn’t a whine. “I cannot refuse you that,” he said. “Yes, amante mio, I will stay.”

Zevran was obviously still feeling vulnerable, so when Drust sat up to find a washcloth, he also passed over the assassin’s shirt. The grateful look Zevran gave him was well worth the loss of his bare shoulders and waist. Drust got them both cleaned up, then eased the blankets out from under them, curling up in the bedroll with Zevran in his arms. The elf sighed against his collar and settled his hands on his chest. He dropped into sleep to the feeling of Drust carding his fingers through his hair.

Drust looked down at the man in his arms and then, softly, pressed a kiss against his crown. His heart was so full that it threatened to burst, but he wouldn’t have traded that ache for anything. If this was all he could have from Zevran, he would be satisfied with it. It would be enough.

It would have to be enough.

  


* * *

  


No one said anything when Zevran emerged from Drust’s tent the next morning, but there was a great deal of blushing from Alistair and a stream of knowing looks directed their way by nearly everyone else. Zevran cheerfully—and shamelessly—ignored them, so Drust followed suit with what he decided was admirably little smugness. Soon they had packed up camp and started north again, and everyone was too busy tromping through the snow in Shale’s wake to dwell on what Drust got up to in his downtime.

It was a tense few days of travel, with barely any laughter and little conversation on the road, and the company didn’t start to relax until they had made their way out of the Hinterlands without incident. The Bannorn was hardly stable, what with Loghain’s civil war and all the bandits hoping to take advantage of the chaos, but at least it was regular human danger and not the darkspawn’s creeping taint. By the time they met up with Bodahn and Sandal, Wynne and Leliana were chatting away, Shale was complaining about birds, Morrigan and Alistair were bickering again, Zevran was needling them both, and everything was back to normal.

Drust found himself walking near the front of the company between Sten and Cadeyrn. The Qunari seemed to be deep in thought; Drust let him be, just enjoying the relative peace and basking in the background noise of his companions’ conversation. It was nice to be able to talk, but sometimes it was nicer still not to need to.

When the southern tip of Lake Calenhad appeared on the horizon, Sten seemed to come to a decision. “Warden,” he said without preamble, “you are not quite as callow as I thought. That is… unexpected.”

Drust had to laugh. “Callow? You thought I was callow?”

“You sound surprised,” Sten said dryly. “You must have heard this before.”

“Not since I was very young,” Drust said, biting his lip around a wide grin. “Should I be insulted?”

“Hm,” Sten said. “You’ll get over it. Eventually.”

Drust laughed again and cuffed him on the forearm, the highest point on Sten’s body that he could readily reach. “Why did I let you out of that cage again?”

He had meant it as a joke, but Sten seemed to take the question at face value. “I have wondered that, myself,” he said. “It is one of the many things I find puzzling about your behaviour.”

That was fair. “Well, there’s plenty I find puzzling about you, too,” Drust said reasonably.

“What is there to be puzzled by?” Sten said. “I’m a simple creature. I like swords. I follow orders. There’s nothing else to know about me.”

 _As if_ , Drust thought. “I don’t think you’re that simple,” he said.

Sten sighed, apparently satisfied. “As I said,” he agreed, “you’re not as callow as I thought.”

That brought Drust up short, and for a long moment he simply considered his Qunari companion, idly scratching Cadeyrn’s neck. “Does that mean you might tell me now why you were in that cage?” he said.

Sten dipped his head in acknowledgement. “I caged myself,” he said. “A weak mind is a deadly foe, as you are no doubt aware.”

Drust chewed on the inside of his cheek. “What do you mean by ‘a weak mind?’”

“That is… complicated,” Sten said. He sighed again, wearily this time. “I told you before that I was sent here. No doubt you have surmised that I was not sent alone.”

Drust nodded, remembering the Qunari he had seen in Sten’s nightmare in the Fade, the easy way they had bantered with each other and with Sten, the unfamiliar endearments that had passed between them in their own language. He remembered Sten’s effortless command, talk of returning home silenced with a single word—the way he had elected to stay, even knowing what he was trapped in. _It is a dream_ , he had said, _but it is a good dream_.

And yet at Drust’s orders he had turned on the shades of his dead friends, had cut them down himself, something that could have been no easier for him than it had been for Drust to kill the spirit impersonating Duncan. That Sten had had his own company before joining Drust’s—yes, this he knew.

Sten no doubt guessed Drust’s thoughts. “I came to your land with seven of the Beresaad—my brothers—to seek answers about the Blight,” he said. “We made our way across the Fereldan countryside without incident, seeing nothing of the threat we were sent to observe—until the night we camped by Lake Calenhad.” Here he paused, momentarily voiceless, his throat working helplessly. “They came from everywhere: the earth beneath our feet, the air above us, our own shadows harboured the darkspawn. I saw the last of the creatures cut down, too late. I fell.”

Sten prided himself in his skill as a warrior; more than that, it was what he _did_ , his entire identity. To have fallen like that, to have failed to protect his brothers—it must have been the most painful thing he’d ever known. Drust swallowed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That sounds like what happened to me at Ostagar.”

Sten met his eyes, an understanding passing between them. “I heard the stories of Ostagar,” he said. “Your kith stood their ground when others fled. No one can do more than that.”

Drust touched the back of his hand, silently telegraphing his sympathy— _you know that applies to you as well, right?_ —and Sten heaved a great sigh. He didn’t respond to the touch, but neither did he move his hand away, and Drust was content to let his fingers rest there a moment before he withdrew.

After a moment, Sten began speaking again. “I don’t know how long I lay on the battlefield among the dead,” he said, “nor do I know how the farmers found me. I only know that when I woke, I was no longer among my brothers.” He took a deep breath. “And my sword was gone from my hand.”

“You probably lost it on the battlefield,” Drust said. Ancestors knew he’d seen enough fallen blades at Ostagar.

“Perhaps,” Sten said, nodding. “I searched for it. And when that failed, I asked my rescuers what had become of it.”

“Did the farmers know where it was?”

Sten shook his head. “They said they found me with nothing. And at that—” For the first time in Drust’s hearing, his voice faltered. “I killed them. With my bare hands. I knew they didn’t have the blade—they had no reason to lie to me. But I panicked. Unthinking, I struck them down.”

Sten had admitted to murder already, had expressed regret and shown himself willing to die for what he had done, but hearing the reality of it was more horrifying than Drust had expected. “Why?” he said, struggling to understand. “Over your sword? How could a blade be so important?”

“That sword was made for my hand alone,” Sten said. “I have carried it from the day I was set into the Beresaad. I was to die wielding it for my people. But now—even if I could cross Ferelden and Tevinter unarmed and bring my report to the Arishok, I would be slain on sight by the antaam. They would know me as soulless, a deserter. No soldier would cast aside his blade while he drew breath.”

Soulless. Holes where men used to be. “Tal-Vashoth,” Drust breathed.

The wretched look Sten gave him said all he needed to know.

Suddenly Drust was furious. He didn’t care for the Qun, but Sten did, and he cared for Sten. And to be barred from home, exiled in the line of duty for no fault of one’s own, and so clearly desperate to go back—

“How can your people possibly think that way?” he snarled.

Sten’s hand clenched into a fist, but then relaxed. “We know who we are,” he said, “and what we are meant to be.”

“So that’s it?” Drust demanded. “You aren’t going to do anything about it?”

Sten regarded him evenly. “What would you have me do?” he said. “It could be anywhere by now.”

“Then we’ll find it,” Drust said. “It wouldn’t be harder than anything else we’ve already done.”

For a long moment, Sten just looked at him, minute flickers of emotion playing over his face. Once Drust would have found them all but invisible, but now he could read them clearly: shock, disbelief, denial, hope—and the barest hint of awe.

“Perhaps those words are empty,” Sten said quietly, “but… thank you all the same.”

That settled it. For the wonder in his Qunari’s eyes, Drust could have moved the very sky. They would travel the length of Lake Calenhad before they reached the pass to Orzammar. He intended to search every inch of that shore.

  


* * *

  


Because things could never be easy, Drust did not find Sten’s sword; because he was blessed with uncommon luck, the lead he did find pointed straight to Orzammar. That Drust found that a far better motivation to return to his homeland than the threat of the Blight said as much about his affection for Sten as it did about his disgust for the last great city of the dwarves. He tried not to think about the fact that the first and last time he had walked this road it had been at Duncan’s side.

They found Faryn clustered with the other surface merchants who had been barred from entering Orzammar. Drust was prepared to fight for the blade if need be, but, of course—because things could never be easy—the man no longer had it.

When he learned its new owner was likely in Redcliffe, he was tempted, for a brief, absurd moment, to turn around and walk right back down Gherlen’s Pass. But he had put off going back to Orzammar three times already, and he could hardly justify leaving now before they had even gone inside. With only the smallest sigh of regret, he let it go for now. Sten’s sword would wait. He suspected the Qunari would rather he see this through in any case.

When they finally gained entry to Orzammar—after arguing their way through the gates, journeying into the darkness of the mountain, crossing the Hall of Paragons, and wading through a scrap between political rivals at the entrance to the city itself—Drust was starting to regret that decision. Looking out across the Commons left him frustrated and irritable, the old helplessness of caste rearing up in his throat. More than he expected, he keenly felt the loss of the open air and the freedom it symbolized. The only good things about being back were the buzzing warmth of his stone sense creeping back, and the excitement of being able to see Rica and Leske again.

His companions stared in open fascination as they moved through the crowds in the Commons—Zevran most of all. “When you said your homeland was no glittering gem, I didn’t know you were being sarcastic,” he said, turning in a circle as he tried to take everything in.

Drust looked up, up to the gleaming buildings of the Diamond Quarter high above, and snorted in disgust. “I wasn’t,” he said. He was not looking forward to going up there—but that was where they were bound.

“But this—this is amazing!” Zevran said. “All the carvings—and the lava! It’s so warm here. Surely you can see that this is beautiful?”

Drust laughed mirthlessly. “Not in my neighbourhood.”

Zevran blinked and looked around. “But this is the Commons, yes? Is it not where the commoners gather?”

“Commoners, yes. Casteless, no.” Even now—wearing finely wrought armour, carrying two glorious blades, with a mabari warhound pacing at his side—Drust could feel the contemptuous stares his brand was drawing from the crowd—and his company of wide-eyed surfacers likely wasn’t helping. “I’ll show you,” he said, “later. Right now I think we need to go involve ourselves in politics.”

The guards at the entrance to the Diamond Quarter gave him a disapproving look, but they let him through: word travelled fast in Orzammar, and no one wanted to be the one to show open disrespect to the Grey Wardens, casteless or no. For half a moment Drust wondered if they might not have an easier time if Alistair took the lead while they were here, at least in public, but then he shook his head. He would not bow to the comfort of hidebound traditionalists. He was casteless _and_ a Grey Warden, and he looked forward to watching them squirm at having to address him with respect.

There was a woman waiting at the top of the stairs when they emerged, and for a moment Drust wondered what this dazzlingly bejewelled noble could possibly want with a battle-scarred company of warriors. Then he recognized her and dropped his pack with a shout, breaking into a run.

Rica met him halfway, flinging her arms around his shoulders as he caught her by the waist and spun her around. She was crying when he set her down, and she dabbed at her eyes carefully so as not to smudge her delicate makeup. Drust couldn’t stop smiling. “Look at you,” he crooned. “You look glorious. I almost didn’t recognize you! What are you doing in the Diamond Quarter?”

Rica laughed. “Can you believe it—as of last month, I’m a royal concubine to House Aeducan!” she said. “They’ve moved mother and me into the _palace_. You could fit our whole neighbourhood just in the bathing room!”

Drust pulled in a shaky breath. He had been away long enough for his sister to have carried a pregnancy to term, but he had never thought— “A child?” he said. “You’ve had a child? With Prince Bhelen?”

Rica nodded, giddy with delight. “I wish you could meet little Endrin,” she said. “But they don’t let me bring him outside the royal nursery.”

Endrin. His sister’s child was named for the former King of Orzammar, and Rica spent her nights with dead King Endrin’s ruthless son—and Drust was about to wade right into that political quagmire.

“What’s going on?” he said. “Tell me everything.”

She did—in enough detail that Drust was able to piece together what she wasn’t saying—and then she led them to meet with Bhelen’s second at the Hall of the Assembly. Vartag Gavorn’s sly manner did little to ease Drust’s mind, especially when he wouldn’t reveal the source of Harrowmont’s promissory notes, but Drust didn’t have enough information to decide against Prince Bhelen yet either—and there was Rica’s safety to consider as well. He thanked Vartag politely, promised to think about it, and went to do some investigating.

What he heard did not give him confidence. Orzammar had always been a cesspit, but the more people Drust spoke to, the less he wanted to put either of the candidates on the throne. Bhelen was said to be a reformer, but even his supporters whispered that he might be guilty of murder, or worse, and his cold heart was renowned; Harrowmont had a sterling reputation among the nobles, but he was also a traditionalist, and known to have little love for the casteless. His frustration mounting, Drust contemplated just abandoning Orzammar to its fate; only his duty to the Wardens—and the awareness of Sten’s eyes on his back—prevented him from giving the order to leave. With no progress made and the day wearing on, he returned to the Diamond Quarter to arrange for a place to stay.

That was where Harrowmont’s second found him. If Drust had just waited, he could have sorted it all out with one conversation: it took only five minutes of Dulin Forender eyeing his brand with barely concealed contempt before he was marching back to the Assembly and Vartag Gavorn. “I’ll do it,” he said. “I trust that Prince Bhelen can find myself and my companions appropriate accommodations for the length of our stay.”

“House Aeducan will have a guest house prepared,” Vartag said. And that was that.

Drust woke the next morning before the lamps had been lit on the streets outside. He dressed quietly in the dark, not wanting to wake Zevran just yet, then left the elf’s room for the kitchen. He was greeted by two sleepy cooks who scrambled to offer him a hot breakfast, but he just shook his head and helped himself to a small loaf of bread, fresh cheese, and cold meat pasties. “I’ll be going out,” he said, folding the food up in a napkin. “If any of my companions ask, tell them they have the morning to themselves. We’ll get to work after lunch.” They assured him they would pass his message along, and with a nod to them both, he went back upstairs to Zevran.

The elf buried his face in the pillow when Drust shook him awake. “It’s too early for this,” he groaned. “I haven’t slept in a real bed in months.”

Drust was merciless. “Don’t get used to it,” he said. “I suppose you can stay in bed if you want, but I thought you wanted to see where I’m from.”

Zevran sat up quickly. “We’re going to see your home?”

“It’ll take a while to walk there, so get up,” Drust said. “And bring weapons. You don’t want to go unarmed in Dust Town.”

“I never go unarmed,” Zevran protested, but got out of bed.

Drust went to follow his own advice, donning his armour and sheathing Duncan’s blades in their customary places on his back. Then he emptied out his pack, replacing his usual supplies with only the napkin of food, a water canteen, and a drawstring bag stuffed so full of coins that it didn’t even jingle. If he was going back to Dust Town, he would be leaving with the knowledge that he had done what he could to make a difference.

He met Zevran in the hall and they left the guest house together, making their way out of the Diamond Quarter and then across the length of the Commons. Dodging the crowds was second nature to Drust, even after so long away, and it was all too easy to fall back into the style of movement he had mastered in the Carta—one that saw even the most arrogant merchants give him a wide berth for fear that he’d answer them with a sword. He could feel Zevran’s eyes on him, too sharp to avoid noticing his manner even in the press of people, but he didn’t stop to explain. Being back in Orzammar was bringing up all kinds of memories that he’d rather have stayed buried.

As they walked, the shops grew shabbier around them, the homes going from houses to apartments and finally to tenements. At last they reached the entrance to Dust Town; beyond that, the shacks and hovels could barely be called homes. Drust paused there, his face bleak as he looked out over the slum. “I never thought I’d be coming back here,” he said.

Zevran touched his shoulder. “We could turn around, if you wish,” he said. “I have no desire to see your old home if it would only upset you.”

But Drust shook his head. “These are my people,” he said. “I owe it to them not to forget where I come from. Not when there are so many still trapped here.”

They entered the slum, Drust moving with the confidence of someone who knew he belonged there, Zevran stepping cautiously behind him. It wasn’t long before they saw their first group of beggars, huddled together in an alcove just off the main street. Drust stopped, pulling the drawstring bag from his pack, and went to them, kneeling and clasping their hands, pressing silver coins into chapped and dirty fingers, stroking a child’s hair, apologizing that there wasn’t more he could do. Zevran watched in fascination, but said nothing when he got to his feet, and they continued into Dust Town.

Drust stopped for every beggar he saw. There were so many of them, and it made his heart ache—knowing that there had always been that many, that he hadn’t noticed them before only because they were so much a part of his everyday life. He gave as much as he judged safe, not wanting those who had so little to be jumped by the Carta thugs he knew still ran these streets; it wasn’t much, but if nothing else, the casteless would eat well tonight. He tucked extra coin into the grubby palms of children and the gnarled hands of elders, pressed more on those whose fingers shook and whose voices were weak from coughing. And as he did he saw hope blossom in a place that had been hopeless for so long.

“Is this truly wise?” Zevran asked, after their fourth such encounter. “Surely someone will think to ask where this money has come from. What if some guard thinks they are thieves?”

Drust had thought of that, but it was a risk he had to take. “What else can I do?” he said.

Zevran considered him for a long moment, then sighed. “Nothing,” he said, and leaned down to kiss him softly. “It is that which makes you a good man.”

At last Drust came to a stop at the back of what could charitably be called a square, facing a tiny, run-down apartment with a street level door. “This is it,” he said. “Rica and I grew up here.”

The lock had been broken sometime after Rica and their mother had been moved up to the nobles’ housing, and it swung open easily under Drust’s hand. He expected to see signs of squatters, but the dust was undisturbed and the ash in the fire pit looked months old. There was nothing that remained that identified it as having belonged to the Brosca family; it was just two cramped rooms, as filthy and run-down as the rest of Dust Town. Zevran had to duck to keep from bumping his head on the ceiling.

“Rica and I slept in the back room, when we slept at home,” Drust said quietly. “Mother had a bed in the front, but more often than not she’d just fall asleep at the table with a bottle of wine.” He looked up at Zevran, trying for a smile and knowing it was trembling. “You can see why I don’t like to reminisce.”

“Parts of the tanning district were like this, in Antiva City,” Zevran said. “Not this bad. My sweet, you didn’t have to bring me here. I can see this is painful for you.”

“I wanted to,” Drust said. “I want you to know where I come from—even when it hurts. _Especially_ when it hurts.”

Zevran looked down at him with his honey-brown eyes and Drust almost looked away, his heart simultaneously too full and too wrung out to bear the weight of Zevran’s scrutiny. But then the elf smiled and reached for Drust’s hand. “Come,” he said gently, and led him back out onto the street.

They sat on the steps at the other side of the square, eating meat pasties and bread with cheese as they watched the people of Dust Town go about their business. Despite how hopeless Drust felt at seeing his people so wretched, there was also joy here: children played elaborate games and got underfoot, women chattered with their neighbours as they hung laundry, people sat together sharing cards and dice and laughter. The casteless had each other, even when they had nothing else.

Zevran interrupted his thoughts with a touch to his arm. “Drust,” he said—and that got Drust’s attention immediately, since the elf so rarely used his name— “what you said before, about wanting me to know the things that hurt—there is something I wish to tell you. You have been a good friend to me, and this is—something you should know.”

Drust’s heart started up a percussive rhythm in his throat, and he leaned forward, putting a hand on Zevran’s knee. “Tell me,” he said. “I’m listening.”

Zevran’s fingers were twisting around each other in his lap. Drust had never seen him so nervous. He looked down, biting his lip, and began, “There is a reason I accepted this mission in Ferelden, far away from home, and it had nothing to do with any thought that I might leave the Crows. Meeting you, after all, was quite an accident. No, it was… my last mission before this one—did not end well.”

Drust kept his voice low. “What happened?”

Zevran bit his lip. “You must understand,” he said, “until that day I was cocky and arrogant. I was the best Crow in Antiva, I believed, and I bragged of my conquests often… both as an assassin and as a lover.”

“You were _more_ cocky and arrogant?” Drust tried to joke. It didn’t much help, but Zevran chuckled weakly, clearly appreciating the effort.

“Indeed,” he said. “I was often told I was insufferable… right before I ended up in bed with someone. Such is how it was. But one of the Crow masters grew tired of my boasting. My bid for an incredibly difficult mark was accepted, much to my surprise: a wealthy merchant with many guards, and completely silent. My friend Taliesen agreed to be part of my team, as well as an elven lass named Rinna. She was… a marvel. Tough, smooth, wicked. Eyes that gleamed like justice. Everything I thought I deserved.”

Drust had heard Zevran speak of his seductions before; this was different. “You fell in love,” he said.

Zevran sighed, squeezing his eyes closed. “Rinna was special,” he said. “I had closed off my heart, I thought, but she touched something within me. It frightened me. When Taliesen revealed to me that Rinna had accepted a bribe from the merchant, told him of our plan, I readily agreed that she needed to pay the price and allowed Taliesen to kill her.

“Rinna begged me not to. On her hands and knees, with tears in her eyes, she told me that she loved me and had not betrayed us.” His voice broke, and he pressed his hands over his eyes. “I laughed in her face,” he said, “and said that even if it were true, I didn’t care.”

“But you did,” Drust said.

“I convinced myself I didn’t,” Zevran said. “Taliesen cut her throat and I watched her bleed out as she stared up at me. I spat on her for betraying the Crows.” His voice shook. “When Taliesen and I finally assassinated the merchant we found the true source of his information. Rinna had not betrayed us after all.”

Drust’s heart ached. “I’m so sorry,” he said, staggered by the inadequacy of that statement. Nevertheless, Zevran leaned against him gratefully.

“I… wanted to tell the Crows what we had done, our mistake,” he said. “Taliesen convinced me not to. He said it would be a foolish waste. So we reported that Rinna had died in the attempt.” He laughed mirthlessly. “We needn’t have bothered. The Crows knew what we had done. The master who disliked me told me so to my face. He said they knew… and they didn’t care. And one day my turn would come.”

A hot core of fury ignited in Drust’s chest, and his hand tightened on Zevran’s knee. “Why would he do that?”

Zevran shrugged. “To rub it in my face, perhaps,” he said. “That I was nothing. That she was nothing.” He sighed, sitting up and scrubbing at his face with both hands. “You asked me once what I wanted to do after leaving the Crows. In truth, what I wanted was to die. What better way than to throw myself at one of the fabled Grey Wardens?” He dropped his hands. “And then… this happened. And here I am.”

Drust’s blood ran cold. “Your payment,” he said. “You bid it all. That’s how you got this contract, I knew it had to be, but I couldn’t figure out _why_ —but I was coming at it from the wrong side. It wasn’t about killing a man for nothing,” he said numbly. “It was about giving everything to die.”

Zevran stared at him. “You knew?”

“I figured it out,” Drust said. “You said you weren’t being paid, but you bid for jobs with your share of the contract. It didn’t match up. But this is—I never would have known it was this. I’m so sorry, Zevran.”

Carefully, Zevran reached up to touch his cheek, and Drust realized he was crying. He turned his face into his hand, kissing his palm, and covered Zevran’s fingers with his own. “I’m so glad I didn’t kill you,” he whispered. “I’m so glad you’re still here with me now.”

Zevran leaned down to rest his forehead against Drust’s. “It… feels good to speak of it to someone,” he said. “I swore I never would. But whatever it is I sought by leaving Antiva, I think I have found it.” Gently, he kissed him, and when he pulled away it was with a smile on his face. “I owe you a great deal.”

Drust had no words. He cupped Zevran’s jaw and leaned into him, savouring his presence, taking strength from the fact that he was alive and well. If Zevran hadn’t drawn his eye—if Drust hadn’t been moved by the familiarity of his story, or worse, if he had just let Sten kill him without talking to him first—no. It didn’t bear thinking about.

“I’ve got you,” he said.

“And I you,” Zevran said. He squeezed Drust’s hand and sat up. “Come, amante mio,” he said. “We should go back to the house. I believe we have work to do, and suddenly I do not feel like sitting about.”

Drust folded up the remains of their breakfast and tucked it back into his pack, and they started back out of Dust Town. And if he stuck closer to Zevran than usual, took his hand and stayed at his side instead of leading the way through the crowd—well, the elf wasn’t saying anything, and really, who could blame him?

  


* * *

  


They stayed in Orzammar a long while. Of everything they had yet done in hopes of ending the Blight, tangling in dwarven politics was by far the most complex. More than once, Alistair expressed his relief at not having taken command. Drust was inclined to agree: he shuddered to think how much worse this task might have been if the leader of their company wasn’t already familiar with the city and its culture. As it was, he still had to bow to the customs of the nobility, which meant that when Lady Dace informed him that the head of her household was on an expedition to the Deep Roads, he just sighed and started mentally preparing a list of the supplies they’d need to go after him.

Fighting darkspawn in the Deep Roads was no different from fighting them anywhere else, and they made their way through the old Aeducan Thaig in good time. They accompanied Lord Dace and his team back to Orzammar, then reported their success to Vartag Gavorn. That was enough for Drust to meet with Prince Bhelen at last. Rica was delighted, singing her patron’s praises with all the enthusiasm of a woman who owed him everything, but Drust had heard enough details in the rumours about the prince to know not to trust him. Bhelen was as slippery as a deepstalker and twice as dangerous.

As Drust had expected, the prince had another task for him. Bhelen was using him, Drust knew that, but it wasn’t like he had another choice. But as glad as he was of the chance to get at Jarvia, knowing he would have to cut his way through dozens of Carta thugs—people like him, casteless brawlers just trying to support their families, many of whom had no other choice—made him sick to his stomach. And no matter what he did to the Carta, if the lot of the casteless wasn’t improved there would only be more criminals springing up to fill the void. That it had taken until Jarvia started preying on the merchants for anyone to bother paying attention to the Carta at all left him unsurprised, but bitter.

But no matter his personal feelings, he needed Orzammar to have a king. If he wanted to stop the Blight, there was nothing else he could do—and so he went. And it all went pretty much as he’d expected.

But then there was Leske.

Leske, who he had missed so dearly in the months he’d been away; Leske, who greeted him with an easy smile and a slap on the shoulder, like he always had. Leske, who showed no sign on his face of the betrayal he was setting Drust up for. Leske, his partner, his best friend, his _salroka_ , who Drust had thought right up until the end was sure to turn on Jarvia and come to fight at his side, Leske whose blood had run down Drust’s own blades—

He didn’t want to think about Leske.

Drust returned to Bhelen in stone-faced silence, gave his report without a hint of emotion inflecting his tone, and returned to the guest house and his bed. The next morning he went to meet with the prince again. It was with something like relief that he accepted Bhelen’s third assignment: another expedition to the Deep Roads would give him something to focus on, and with no leads on Branka’s whereabouts he could be weeks or even months down there—plenty of time to put Leske’s betrayal behind him. He went back to the guest house and announced their next mission, then drew up a list of supplies. After turning it over to the household servants, he gathered up his companions, and they made their way down to the Proving Ground. Drust had a score to settle, and he wanted them there to see it.

Standing proud on that sacred ground as the Proving Master declared him Orzammar’s new champion was perhaps the most satisfying thing he had ever accomplished.

The night before he was to leave for the Deep Roads, Drust asked Zevran to his bed. Truth be told they had rarely slept apart since arriving, but this was different: Zevran would be staying behind with everyone else while Drust and his team left for however long it would take to track down a Paragon who had been missing for two years. They stayed up far into the night, long after Orzammar’s lamps had been extinguished and the streets were illuminated only by the glow of the lava below.

Drust had lit the brazier, and Zevran was beautiful in the firelight—his flaxen hair in disarray against the pillows, his brown skin limned in warm gold, his figure glowing brightly against Drust’s darker tones. Though initially hesitant to be looked at with his chest bare, time and trust had reassured him that Drust would see him no differently no matter the shape of his form, and now he stripped his shirt off without the slightest hesitation. Drust covered him with his body, hands firm against his waist and the curve of his spine, and lavished him with all the attention he wouldn’t be able to give in the coming weeks. He didn’t know when he would next see Zevran again.

Afterward, Zevran watched with hooded eyes and a tired smile on his face as Drust wet a washcloth. “You could be rougher with me, you know,” he said. His voice was hoarse with the cries Drust had wrung from his throat.

Drust returned to the bed, wiping down Zevran’s thighs with damp cloth and soft hands. “I’m plenty rough with you already,” he said, pressing his thumb against the bruise he had left on Zevran’s hipbone. There were more such marks between his legs and all across his shoulders.

Zevran stretched beneath his hands, tugging Drust down on top of him. “That’s true,” he said, “and you know I love your marks. Don’t think I’m making a complaint, because I assure you I have none. But that is not quite what I mean.”

“Well, what do you mean?” Drust said, settling on his side with his left arm and leg draped over Zevran’s body. Zevran let his hand rest at Drust’s neck, fingers curling into the base of his braid, and turned his face into Drust’s hair.

“I mean a… roughness of manner. You’re always so gentle with me, even when you’re leaving bruises with that beautiful mouth of yours,” he said, lifting his other hand to brush over Drust’s lips. Drust kissed the pads of his fingers, and Zevran laughed softly. “See, that is exactly what I’m talking about. It is wonderful, truly, and very endearing, but it is not always what I want most.”

Drust thought for a moment, something uneasy fluttering in his stomach. “You want me to—be harsh with you. To—what? Throw you around, pin you on the bed, make you struggle? To strike you, even?”

“That would be a good start, yes.”

Drust lifted himself up onto his elbow, studying Zevran’s face. The elf looked back at him, frank and self-assured and faintly flushed under the scrutiny, and Drust chewed on his lip as he tried to sort out how he felt. “I don’t want to hurt you, Zevran,” he said at last.

Zevran cupped his cheek and smiled up at him sweetly. “I know, my sweet, but I like it when it hurts.”

Drust hesitated. “Does this have anything to do with—with the memory I saw, when I was breaking us out of the Fade?” he said.

For a moment Zevran didn’t reply. “With the Crows, you mean.”

“They tortured you,” Drust said, fighting to keep his voice steady. Darkspawn visions aside, he still didn’t dream, but the image of Zevran stretched out on the rack had haunted him regardless.

Zevran’s fingers combing through his hair brought him back to the present. “And so what if it does? No, listen,” he said, preempting the objection he could plainly see on Drust’s face. “Everything I am has something to do with the Crows, amante, you know this. I can no more help being shaped by them than you can help being shaped by your Carta. That doesn’t change the fact that when I’m here in your bed, _here_ is the only place I am. The Crows may have shaped me, but they do not control me.”

Drust considered that, then sighed, tipping his head into Zevran’s hand. “I just don’t want to feel like I’m doing the same thing to you that they did,” he said.

“You aren’t,” Zevran said. “You wouldn’t. What they did to me and what I would feel at your hands are nothing alike. Learning to like pain makes torture easier to bear, yes, but that hardly makes it enjoyable. But with a lover… you can come to crave it, in a way.”

Drust stared at him, temporarily robbed of speech, and Zevran flushed but held his eyes. “Do not mistake me,” he said. “I would certainly not wish to be tortured again. But there is something very intimate about surrendering your body into another’s hands, something wholly different from the torments of the Crows. That kind of submission, that trust, even without the pain—it sends you into a trance, almost. It is hard to describe—like—“

“Like you’re deep underwater and don’t need to come up for air,” Drust said, and now it was Zevran’s turn to stare at him. “I know what it’s like. I’ve been there.”

Zevran blinked, and his lips curved into a small smile. “You?”

“Not often,” Drust said, smiling in return. “I prefer the other side of it. But I had one lover, years ago… I know what you mean.”

“Then you will do it?”

Drust chewed on his lip, considering. He was used to taking a dominant role with his partners; it was his natural inclination, and he was good at it, if the way Zevran melted under his hands was any indication. It would be a small step from there to the sort of roughness Zevran had asked him for, and Drust could certainly see the appeal of pinning him by the wrists and making him fight to get closer, or throwing him down on the bed and fucking him so hard he couldn’t see straight. But striking him…

Something in him still hesitated, but at the same time he found it hard to ignore the guarded desire in Zevran’s eyes. Hurting him didn’t have to mean harming him, surely. He could find some way to give him the pain he craved without replicating what he had seen in the nightmare.

“Let me think about it,” he said, settling back down at Zevran’s side. “Maybe I could. But I’d have to get used to the idea.”

“Of course,” Zevran said immediately. “That’s all I can ask, after all. You’ll have plenty of time to contemplate while you’re away.”

“Ancestors,” Drust moaned. “Let’s not even talk about that. This trip is going to be awful.”

Zevran laughed, pressing a kiss to his crown. “You’ll get through it, my Grey Warden. No matter how awful it is.”

  


* * *

  


In the end it wasn’t as awful as Drust expected, because—of course—it was worse.

Being unexpectedly accosted by Oghren at the entrance to the Deep Roads forced him to do some last minute rearrangement, and in the end Sten went back to the guest house. Drust couldn’t expect Oghren to work with him so seamlessly, or to guard his back so carefully as Sten did, but it was worth giving up a bit of security for the information he could provide. He was glad of it long before they reached the Ortan Thaig—without Oghren’s knowledge of Branka they could have been months down here. The mission was painful enough without the frustrations of a fruitless search.

Then they found Ruck, and Drust began to wish he had never agreed to come down at all.

He had never seen someone tainted like that before. He had never known what the darkspawn sickness would look like on a person, what it would feel like to be able to sense the queasy slide of tainted blood through a body it didn’t belong to. Ruck was going to die, he knew—as surely as he knew when there were darkspawn over the crest of the hill, as surely as he knew the Archdemon would rise. Worse still was the awareness that but for the Joining ritual, there he would be as well.

But even that was nothing compared to the horror he felt when at last they tracked down Branka, and it became apparent just what she had done. He had expected her to be driven, abrasive, disturbed even. He had not expected this.

“Your own _people_ ,” he seethed. “They relied on you. They trusted you!”

“They were my people. I can do with them as I wish,” she replied, and Drust had never hated anyone more.

Cold rage was all that bore him through the gauntlet of the Anvil, and he hacked his way through Branka’s hordes of darkspawn and Caridin’s traps with a brutal, furious efficiency. He could sense Wynne’s despairing anger, the conflict rolling off Oghren in waves, Shale’s disgust at the knowledge of what they were fighting, but he shut them all out and focused on nothing but the kill. It was a relief when they finally broke through and saw the Anvil of the Void waiting on the other side. And then there was a golem, and the golem was Caridin himself, and all the hatred and fury turned into blessed resolve. There was a way out. There was a way out, and Branka would pay.

It was barely surprising, after that, to learn that the Anvil itself was just as bad. Drust destroyed it with the Stone singing in his heart.

When at last they returned to Orzammar, Drust stopped for nothing. He went directly to the Assembly, grim-faced, grit-covered, bearing Cairidin’s golden crown in his hands. The deshyrs bickered, Bhelen strutted, Harrowmont glared, and Drust just wanted to scream. He had hated every second spent dealing with this mess of politics, and these arrogant, self-important nobles were too busy with their pointless squabbles to care that they toyed with tens of thousands of lives.

Coming back to this after dealing with Branka, it was only natural that he snapped.

“Why would a Paragon trust someone who knows nothing of us with such a decision?” Harrowmont demanded, levelling a disgusted look at the brand on Drust’s cheek. “This is preposterous!”

“Nothing?” Drust snarled. “I know nothing? Oh, I know something, all right: I am so _fucking sick_ of noble hypocrisy.”

The deshyrs fell into a stunned silence, and for the first time in Orzammar’s history, a duster had the floor in the Assembly.

He left the hall feeling lighter than he had in weeks, months—possibly years. To be casteless, and to get the chance to tell the nobles how you felt about them—to have such status that they might actually _listen_ —well, he was hardly about to get his hopes up, but if nothing else it had been very satisfying. He returned at last to the guest house with a spring in his step, and Zevran met him at the door. Drust kissed him very thoroughly and went upstairs for a bath.

The next morning he had one last meeting with Bhelen and said goodbye to Rica, and they were on their way out of Orzammar by midday. Oghren accompanied them: after what they had gone through in the Deep Roads, and seeing how lost the warrior had seemed with Branka’s death, Drust had invited him to join the company. When they left the shelter of the mountain, he let the rest of his companions go ahead, hanging back with Oghren while the other dwarf blinked owlishly up at the sky. It had been nearly a year since he had first left Orzammar himself, but Drust would never forget his first sight of the surface world.

“The feeling passes,” he said quietly.

Oghren clapped his shoulder, and they started down the road.

They camped that night in a small clearing off the mountain path—so small in fact that Morrigan had no room to set up her own fire, and instead joined the rest of the party at theirs. Shale, too, sat nearby—quietly, no doubt still deep in thought about Cairidin’s revelations on the nature of golems, but part of the company nonetheless. Drust basked in it: his long absence in the Deep Roads had been wearing not only for its horrors, but also for his separation from most of his friends.

That he had enough friends that he could be separated from a number at once was still a marvel to him. Sitting here now, with Cadeyrn bracing his left side and Zevran leaning on his right, and the rest of his companions surrounding him, talking and laughing in the firelight—that was nothing short of a miracle.

They stayed up later than usual that night, all of them glad to be reunited and out of Orzammar and back in the moving air. Oghren, wonder of wonders, had brought a skin of home-brewed ale with him to the surface, and he and Wynne soon fell into a discussion of brewing techniques that was all but inscrutable to Drust. For once Morrigan and Alistair weren’t sniping at each other, instead listening with rapt attention to an Orlesian story of Leliana’s that was—if the pink of Alistair’s cheeks was anything to go by—more than slightly risqué. Sten and Shale sat just outside the circle of firelight, their soft conversation making for the most unusual fellowship that Drust had ever seen. What they spoke of, he couldn’t imagine, but he was happy just to play witness to it. He settled comfortably against his dog, pulled a drowsing Zevran into his lap, and relaxed.

As the fire and the chatter slowly died down, he felt someone watching him and looked up to meet Sten’s eyes. The Qunari didn’t look away, just gazing at him steadily. Drust raised his eyebrows inquiringly, and Sten glanced at Zevran, then back up to Drust with a faintly questioning expression. Drust just shrugged. If Sten wanted to talk to him about it, he would; there was no way to distill was was going on between him and Zevran to silent communication across the camp anyway.

They met up with Bodahn’s caravan at the foot of the mountains and turned south, starting towards Redcliffe. It was slow going: winter had abated while they were in Orzammar, and the roads were muddy and occasionally flooded. If they hadn’t been fenced in by the Frostbacks on one side and Lake Calenhad on the other, Drust would have considered taking them cross-country, wagons be damned.

Sten came to him before long, just as Drust had expected. On the third day out of Orzammar he joined Drust at the head of the company, waiting until Zevran was fully engaged in bantering with Oghren before he spoke.

“What is it exactly that you are doing with the elf, Warden?” he said, his voice carefully neutral.

Drust ran a hand through his beard thoughtfully. “It’s… kind of complicated, I suppose,” he said. Sten snorted expressively, effectively conveying what he thought of complicated interpersonal relations, and despite himself Drust chuckled. “I care for him,” he said. “I guess that’s the best way of putting it.”

Sten looked at him sidelong. “You care for all of us, Warden. Even when you have little reason to. In fact, given the way you speak to those we meet I have to wonder if you don’t care for everyone in the world.”

Drust laughed helplessly: there was nothing he could say to that. “This is different, though,” he said. He chewed on his lip. “I don’t know if I could explain it properly. Qunari don’t do relationships, do they? Love?”

“We have love, yes,” Sten said. “Between members of a kith, or those who were raised together. I suspect this is not the same.”

Drust shook his head. He didn’t think about how he had barely spoken to Zevran of this, or the reaction he had gotten when he’d tried; he didn’t think about how strangely easy it was to confess to Sten. “Not exactly,” he said. “We have that kind of love, too, but this is—it’s a different kind of partnership. And there’s often sexual desire involved as well.” He shrugged. “At least, there is for me. But Zevran is…” He trailed off, a surge of emotion welling up in his throat. “He says he doesn’t want love. Sex, yes, and friendship, but not love. I don’t think I believe him, really, but I can’t—” He sighed. “Like I said, it’s kind of complicated.”

Sten surveyed him levelly, his mouth pressed in a firm line as he considered Drust’s words. “Your people insist on making everything so,” he said at last.

“You’re probably right,” Drust said. “But all the same, I wouldn’t give it up. There’s joy in it as much as pain.”

Sten grunted noncommittally. “Perhaps,” he said. “It seems hopelessly tangled to me, but so do all your customs. Under the Qun there is no connection between love and desire. Love grows naturally between those who work together, and sexual release is dealt with by the tamassrans.”

Drust’s heart thumped— _between those who work together_ —and he swallowed around it, focusing instead on the other half of what Sten had said. “Tamassrans?” he said. “Aren’t those the priests who raise children?”

Sten made an aborted noise, and Drust realized with surprise that it was a smothered chuckle. “There are many kinds of tamassrans, Warden.”

“One day I’ll have to come visit these islands of yours,” Drust said, “if I’m ever going to make any sense of your people.”

“I doubt you could ever make sense of the Qunari,” Sten said, but there was the ghost of a smile on his lips.

“Maybe not,” Drust agreed. “But it’s not like you’ve managed to make sense of us southerners, either.”

Sten snorted in amusement. “That is because there is no sense to be made of you,” Sten said. “Especially not in this… complicated thing you are doing with the elf.”

Drust groaned. “Don’t remind me.”

The look Sten gave him was solemn, but there was a teasing glint in his eyes that Drust wasn’t sure anyone else would have noticed. “Warden,” he said, “I doubt very much that I shall ever stop.”

Drust laughed and punched him on the arm.

  


* * *

  


The night before they expected to reach Redcliffe, they camped on a ridge overlooking the valley and watched the twinkling lights of the town far below. There was something odd about them—bigger fires, burning later, and a strange greenish glow—but Drust resolved not to worry about it for now. Whatever was happening down there, they would deal with it tomorrow. They could only go so far in one day.

The camp was quiet that night, all of them preparing for what they might have to face in the morning. Oghren nursed a sack of mead Drust had unearthed for him from their supplies; Zevran sat talking with Alistair, who worried at the fate of the village; Leliana washed the evening’s dishes; Wynne had retired to bed. Drust was just thinking of following her example when Sten sat down at the fire, muttering irritably in his own language as he redid the braids in his hair.

Drust’s fingers itched. “Let me,” he said suddenly, getting to his feet. Sten turned to look at him, raising his eyebrows, and Drust flushed slightly but didn’t back down. “Leske,” he started, his voice breaking; he cleared his throat and tried again. “Leske used to wear his hair like that. I helped him with it sometimes, and I miss it. Let me?”

For a moment Sten didn’t react, but then he nodded once and settled on the ground, letting Drust stand on the log behind him. Like this he was barely a head taller than Sten, and he laughed to himself as he settled. “You’re too tall for this,” he said, hands settling into a familiar position on either side of the first braid. “Tip your head back.”

“You are too short for this,” Sten said, but did as instructed. Drust hummed briefly and started braiding, and before long Sten relaxed under his hands.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. “I have been doing it myself for some time, ever since…” He stopped. “I always forget how much harder it is to do on your own,” he said at last.

“I understand,” Drust said, smoothing his fingers over a completed braid. He started on the second. “It must be so different, not being among your people. Do you find Ferelden very strange?”

Sten exhaled a breath of air that Drust could have sworn was a laugh. “To put it lightly,” he said wryly. “No one has a place here. Your farmers wish to be merchants. The merchants dream of being nobles, and the nobles become warriors. No one is content to be who they are.”

Drust bit his lip, thinking of the strictness of caste and how little you could do to buck it. “Don’t the Qunari ever want to change their lot in life?”

“What does that accomplish?” Sten said. “The farmer who buys a shop is never a merchant: he is always a farmer-turned-merchant. He carries his old life with him as a turtle carries its shell.”

“Everyone does,” Drust said before he could help himself. “I carry the Carta, and the Wardens, and Ostagar. You carry what happened to you at Lake Calenhad. Why does it make a difference?”

Sten shifted, but kept his head still as Drust tied off another braid. “It’s not the same.”

“No? Why not?” Drust said. The Qunari made no reply, and he shrugged. Personally, he couldn’t see much of a difference between a merchant who had once been a farmer and a merchant who had always been so, but if it mattered to Sten… “Maybe he was meant to be a merchant,” he said.

“Meant my whom?” Sten asked. “And if that were, indeed, his purpose, why did that mysterious source of meaning not make him so to begin with?”

“How do you find your purpose if you don’t look for it?” Drust said reasonably.

“You can learn to find it,” Sten said, “in doing your duty, in serving your people. There is no need to search for it.”

 _There is here_ , Drust thought, but there was no point in saying it. Sten knew that; that was the very source of his frustrations. “You sound a bit homesick,” Drust said instead.

Under his hands, Sten stilled for a moment, then relaxed. “Perhaps,” he said. “It’s strange to be in a crowd and hear a language that is not your own. To see faces that are and aren’t like yours. I miss the smells of Seheron—tea and incense and the sea. Ferelden smells of wet dogs.”

On the other side of the fire, Cadeyrn and Alistair made near-identical offended noises, but Drust just chuckled. “You left out rotting garbage,” he said, flashing a grin at Alistair.

“True,” Sten said. “I was trying to forget that part.”

Alistair made another offended noise. “Stop maligning my homeland,” he said, and threw a pebble at them. Drust ducked, shaking with muffled laughter. Sten bore the jostling with a long-suffering sigh.

“Feel free to insult Orzammar as much as you like,” Drust said once he’d righted himself.

“That doesn’t count,” Alistair protested. “You hate it too.”

“And now I’m living in Ferelden instead,” Drust said. “Take it as a compliment.”

Alistair snorted, but he was smiling, which was an improvement over the anxious expression of a few minutes before. Satisfied, Drust went back to Sten’s braids. He was nearly done.

“Is there anything you do like here?” he said, once he could hear that Alistair and Zevran had returned to their conversation.

Sten contemplated his answer in silence. “There is… interesting food here,” he said. “You have a thing… it doesn’t have a word in the Qunari tongue. Little baked things, like bread, but sweet, and crumbly.”

Drust blinked. “Cookies?” he said.

“Yes!” Sten said, likely as pleased to know what they were called as he was that Drust had understood him. “We have no such things in our lands. This should be remedied.”

Drust bit back a laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. He tied off the last of the braids, then checked them over for stray hairs. “There, you’re done. You shouldn’t need those redone for a few weeks at least.”

“My thanks,” Sten said, gathering his hair back into its usual queue. He hesitated, turning to look over his shoulder. “Should you ever need someone to return the favour…”

Drust pulled his braid over his shoulder, running it through his fingers. “I can usually manage this fine on my own,” he said. “But I appreciate the offer.”

“Why do you have so much hair anyway?” Sten said. “It seems impractical.”

Drust shrugged, smiling. His hair had been down to his hips for so long that he barely noticed it anymore; he had worn it in the same loosely braided style since his early twenties. “I had a lover once,” he said. “He thought it was beautiful, and there was little else I could pay for to make myself so. I kept it, even after we stopped seeing each other.”

There was a sudden sense of stillness from across the campfire, and Drust abruptly became conscious of Zevran’s focus on him. He looked up, only for the elf to drop his eyes immediately and excuse himself, making for his tent. Drust watched him leave, chewing on his lip, and then glanced at Sten. The Qunari didn’t seem to have noticed anything, but Drust remembered other moments like this, and a suspicion began to form.

How long had Zevran been looking at him like that? And more importantly, what exactly was it that he was seeing?

  


* * *

  


To no one’s surprise, there was trouble in Redcliffe—but after spending the last several weeks dealing with Orzammar politics, walking corpses were practically straightforward. Drust had no doubt that things would get worse once they made it up to the castle, but for now their task was simple: protect the townsfolk. Together they helped shore up the militia, cajoled the blacksmith into opening his forge again, hunted through the village for supplies, and persuaded the Chantry Mother to reassure the knights. It wasn’t until Murdock asked them to secure Dwyn’s assistance in the fight that Drust remembered with a shock that Sten’s sword might be here. It was only by a supreme effort of will that he refrained from badgering the dwarf about it right away. There would be time enough for that after Redcliffe was safe.

Nightfall came, and with it the walking corpses. With the aid of the knights and the village militia, Drust and his companions tore through them like paper. After months spent honing their skills against darkspawn, the army of the dead barely rated as a challenge; they were noteworthy only in their numbers. Drust soon sank into a comfortable rhythm, cutting down wave after wave of the creatures as Alistair defended the militiamen and Wynne and Leliana provided backup. When the dawn came, it rose on a town that had not lost a single soldier.

By the time the village had sorted itself out in the aftermath and Drust had sent a runner to the ridge for the rest of his company, the team had been awake for over twenty-four hours. Wynne’s spells had kept them going over the course of the long night, but there was only so much that magic could make up for. Drust sat with Alistair and Leliana against the Chantry walls, drowsing in the relative quiet; Wynne herself, it seemed, was too busy helping the wounded to have noticed she was tired. Confident that the village was in good hands for the time being, Drust allowed himself a nap.

He woke to afternoon sunlight and the sound of barking. Cadeyrn came bounding up to him, thoroughly licking his face. Drust sat up and shoved the dog’s head away, scrubbing at his face with his sleeve as his remaining companions made their arrival.

“How cute,” Morrigan drawled, the tilt of her chin indicating Leliana and Alistair, still leaning on each other as they blinked awake.

Drust dragged himself upright using Cadeyrn as a crutch. “Be nice, Morrigan, none of us slept last night,” he said.

“What happened here?” Zevran said.

Drust grimaced. “There’s been an army of walking corpses coming down from the castle every night,” he said. “No word from anyone inside, and as far as everyone knows the arl is still sick. We’re going to have to go up there and investigate.”

Morrigan frowned. “Demons?” she said. “They can possess corpses as well as living men—better, in fact, as corpses have no will to resist.”

“Wynne mentioned that too,” Drust said. “I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. For now I imagine the villagers could use our help, in whatever way you can offer.”

Morrigan huffed, but moved off—possibly to offer assistance, but more likely just to get out of the way. Alistair helped Leliana to her feet, and after a brief conference the two of them went to see if the healers needed any more hands. Shale had already gone to help the soldiers with their barricades, and Zevran and Oghren drifted after it, arguing over the state of the militia’s weapons. Sten was about to follow, but Drust stopped him with a shake of his head.

“Sten,” he said. “Come with me.”

Sten narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing, Warden?”

Drust whistled for Cadeyrn and started towards the waterfront. “If we’re lucky,” he said, “retrieving something important.”

The hope that suddenly kindled in Sten’s eyes was almost too much to bear.

Dwyn was as surly as ever when Drust walked into his house, if grudgingly impressed that he’d managed to save the town. His attitude only soured further when Drust didn’t leave right away.

“What do you want now?” he said.

“I heard from a scavenger that you bought a Qunari sword,” Drust said. “I’ve been looking for it.”

Dwyn folded his arms. “Now why would you be interested in that?”

“It’s mine,” Sten growled from the doorway. To his credit, Dwyn didn’t jump, though his bodyguards did. Only Drust noticed the anxious tightness of the Qunari’s hand on Cadeyrn’s collar.

Dwyn heaved an exasperated sigh. “You know, Faryn didn’t mention the giant he took it from was _alive_ ,” he said. He sounded more resigned than hostile, and Drust relaxed even as excitement brought his heart into his throat.

“Just your luck,” he agreed. “We’ve been chasing that sword halfway across Ferelden, and as you can probably guess, it’s pretty important to my companion. Why don’t you give it up and we’ll get out?”

Dwyn didn’t even hesitate. “Excellent idea,” he said, fishing in his belt pouch. “It’s in my strongbox; here’s the key. Now, how about you leave me alone?”

Drust wasted no time. He took the key, unlocked the chest, and passed the blade over to Sten, and they left Dwyn’s house without another word.

Sten’s hands were trembling as he traced them over his sword, unable to settle. “Strange,” he murmured, fingers running the length of the scabbard. “I had almost forgotten it—completion,” he said. He turned his eyes on Drust. The expression on his face had gone beyond wonder to an awe so striking that Drust almost stumbled. “Are you sure you are a Grey Warden? I think you must be an ashkaari, to find a single lost blade in a country at war.”

Drust stopped, turning to face him. “I wanted to do it,” he said. His voice was shaky. “For you I’d have done much more.”

“Kadan,” Sten breathed. He dropped to one knee, putting them of a height for the first time in Drust’s memory, and pressed his forehead against Drust’s. “I would thank you for this, if I knew how,” he said.

Drust braced his hands on Sten’s shoulders, staggered by the intimacy of his gesture. “Seeing you like this is gift enough,” he said. His heart was pounding in his throat. “Will you be going home now?”

Sten considered that. “I have to make my report,” he said slowly, “but I could deliver a much more satisfying answer to the Arishok’s question if the Blight were ended, don’t you agree?”

Relief washed through Drust in a giddy wave. “So you’re staying.”

“I am one of the Beresaad,” Sten said. He gripped the back of Drust’s head, then released him, getting to his feet. “I have never abandoned the field with the battle unmet.”

Drust laughed. Absurdly, he wanted to hug him, but Sten was far too tall for that now that he was standing again. “Well, this is no time to start,” he said.

“Indeed,” Sten agreed, his lips curving into a smile. “It isn’t every Grey Warden who has his own Beresaad.” He shrugged off the sheath he had been wearing, settling his own sword in its place. “I will see you reach the Archdemon,” he said. “Lead the way.”

His heart soaring, Drust did just that.

  


* * *

  


Morrigan and Wynne had been right: in the end it was a demon that was responsible. That the demon in question had taken over the body of the arl’s young son—that, no one had foreseen.

Remembering the horrors of Kinloch Hold and the number of abominations they’d been forced to slay, Drust had steeled himself for the unpleasant task of killing a child. Even when he’d worked for the Carta, Beraht had never asked that of him; it would be the greatest of ironies to be forced to it only after he had won his freedom. He greeted Jowan’s suggestion with guilty relief—normally blood magic would hardly be better, and it wasn’t as though he wanted to sacrifice Isolde’s life, but she, at least, was old enough to decide for herself. When the mage informed him that the same ritual could be performed without a blood price, as long as the casters had sufficient lyrium, Drust made ready to go to the Circle immediately. Distance be damned: he could see they both lived. Perhaps this would make up for some of the mages he hadn’t been able to save.

Irving was all too happy to help, and Drust’s company returned to Redcliffe with a contingent of enchanters and a trunk of lyrium in tow. The mages worked quickly: within three hours of their arrival the ritual had been set up, and all that was left to do was decide who would journey into the Fade. Wynne and Irving, used to working in concert with other spellcasters, would be more useful participating in the ritual. Morrigan could certainly handle herself alone, and Drust was going to ask her, but then something occurred to him. He turned to Jowan, still flanked by two of Arl Eamon’s guards, and sized him up.

“Are you serious about wanting to redeem yourself?” he said.

Jowan nodded. “I just want to make amends.”

“Let him go,” Drust said to the guards. Ignoring their astonished expressions, he turned back to the mage. “I’m trusting you,” he said.

“I’ll do whatever I have to,” Jowan said as the manacles dropped from his wrists.

Irving argued, of course, but Drust was firm, and in the end Jowan did go into the Fade. Drust sat by his unconscious body as around him the mages maintained the spell, hands clenching anxiously as he tried to imagine what Jowan was doing. Would he be able to handle the demon? Would he want to, or would he make a deal with it instead? As the minutes wore on, more and more Drust wondered if he had made a mistake.

What a marvel it was when Jowan returned abruptly to consciousness, and Connor and Isolde were both safe.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said of Eamon. He was stable—the demon, for reasons of its own, had seen to that—but neither would he recover. Isolde nearly broke down, having pinned all her hopes on the quest for the Urn, but after running into Ser Donall in the Lothering Chantry, Drust had been making his own investigations. That he had found an impostor apprentice in Brother Genitivi’s home, and then been attacked seeking information at Lake Calenhad, made him suspect that he’d been on the right track.

“I might have a lead on that,” he said. “A town called Haven, in the mountains. I’ll find a way to save your husband.”

Isolde clasped his hand in wordless thanks, and once again the company made ready to depart.

They made their way back up the ridge, leaving Bodahn to ply his trade in Redcliffe. It was a relief to move without the impediment of the wagon, and though the road was still muddy they made better time than they had coming in. Drust liked being in the mountains, especially with his stone sense still fresh from having journeyed so recently to Orzammar: he could feel the Stone as a gentle warmth beneath his feet, a sensation that only got stronger when they stopped for the night to make camp in a natural cave. He sat against the rock wall, his head tipped back against it, and watched as his companions set up their tents and Sten started on dinner. Blissfully he closed his eyes. Surrounded by his people and cradled in the arms of the Stone, he was home.

Eventually he became conscious of a presence at his side, and he swam up out of himself to find Zevran sitting next to him, their shoulders just barely touching. Smiling, Drust reached out to take his hand, only to be surprised when Zevran instead curled it into a fist, shying away.

“Zevran?” he said, his voice thick with disuse.

Zevran didn’t look at him. “Can we talk?” he said.

Drust cleared his throat. “Yeah, of course,” he said. “What’s going on?”

Zevran hesitated, flexing his fingers, but then rallied his courage. “You and Sten are quite close, are you not?” he said. His tone was deliberate in its lightness. “I am curious as to the nature of your relationship.”

Drust had been waiting for him to bring this up ever since the night he had braided Sten’s hair, but he found in the moment that his diplomacy had deserted him. “It’s not what you think,” he said, and sat up, trying to buy some time to get his thoughts in order.

Zevran laughed once, dryly. “Is it not?” he said. “I’ve heard what he calls you now. I don’t know what it means, my sweet, but it certainly sounds like an endearment to me. I know a complication when it rears its head and threatens to bite.” He shook his head. “You and I have had our fun, but if this thing between you and Sten is leading somewhere, I’ll happily step aside. Complication avoided. Everyone’s the happier, yes?”

 _You’d step aside_ , Drust thought, _but happily? Oh, Zevran, you liar_. “I wouldn’t be,” he said instead. “I don’t want you to step aside.”

Startled, Zevran looked up at him, his eyes wide for a moment before he got his expression under control. “You don’t?”

“Of course not,” Drust said. He kept his voice gentle. A thread of fury was digging its way through him, and for a brief moment he wondered how hard it could possibly be to track down everyone who had taught Zevran he was so easy to discard.

Some of the tension went out of Zevran’s shoulders, but he didn’t fully relax. “That is good to hear,” he said. “But this is not so simple a matter.”

“Why not?” Drust said. He sat forward, trying to puzzle this out. “Do you want _him_ to step aside?”

Zevran hesitated, but shook his head. “If he wished to, perhaps, but I suspect you would like that no better, yes?”

Drust bit his cheek, then nodded. “I don’t want to have to choose between you,” he said. “I… care for you both.”

“I know, my sweet,” Zevran said, “and were it solely up to me I would not ask you to. I make no claims upon you, nor would I dream of such. You are free to pursue your fancies as you desire, and I would have it no other way.” Drust opened his mouth to speak, but Zevran cut him off before he could contest that assertion. “I suspect, however, that Sten would not feel the same. If there is to be something between you and I, to string him along would be deeply unfair. Surely you know this is true.”

Drust felt like the air had been punched from his lungs. “String him along?” he said. “I think you must have misunderstood—I’m not stringing him anywhere. As if I could.”

“No?” Zevran said. He raised his eyebrows, turning a significant gaze on Sten. “I notice our Qunari friend has acquired a new sword since our arrival in Redcliffe. I suspect there are few places you could not lead him now.”

Drust groaned. Undoubtedly that was true, but he didn’t think that was what was meant by “stringing him along.” How had this conversation gotten so out of hand?

Zevran’s voice was firm. “Choose as best pleases you,” he said, “but you will have to choose. I am many things: a murderer, a thief, a lover—but I am no cheat. If whatever is between us cannot be honest, then let it not be at all.”

Drust breathed. Suddenly he could see a way out. “And what if it could?” he said.

Zevran blinked. “What?”

“What if it could be honest?” Drust repeated. “Would you still want things to change? If we could just decide this didn’t need to be a complication?”

For a long moment, Zevran did not speak. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“Look, Sten knows about us,” Drust said. “Everyone knows about us. It’s not like we’ve been all that subtle. But that hasn’t made a difference to whatever it is he feels for me.” He wasn’t going to try to define what that was—the Qunari probably had words for it, but he certainly didn’t. “If it doesn’t matter to him, does it still matter to you?”

Zevran chewed on his lip. “You’re certain he doesn’t mind?”

“He even teases me about it,” Drust said.

That surprised Zevran, and it showed. “Sten? Teases?” he said. “Are you sure we are speaking of the same man?”

Drust laughed. “I swear on the Stone,” he said, touching the rock beneath them. “It’s subtle as sin, but he has a brilliant sense of humour.”

Zevran hummed noncommittally. “I shall have to take your word for it,” he said. “Even so, I don’t know about this. I have seen sudden jealousies come up between lovers too many times to simply brush this off.”

“Oh,” Drust said. He knew there had been a misunderstanding. “Sten’s not my lover.”

The look Zevran gave him was that of a man who had stepped down in the dark and found an unexpected stair. “I—what?” he said. “He’s not? But—the way you sit with him, and what he calls you—”

“If he had ever wanted it, maybe things would be different,” Drust said. “But he didn’t. He doesn’t. I don’t even think I could look at him that way,” he confessed. “It would feel… almost like a violation. He’s not interested. The Qunari don’t take lovers, not like we do.”

Zevran narrowed his eyes. “Yet you say you care for him,” he said. “Are you telling me the affection between you is merely that of friendship?”

“I don’t know what to call it,” Drust said. “I don’t know if there’s a word for it. Sten said the Qunari way is for love to grow naturally between those who work together. He calls that kind of group a ‘kith,’” he said. “I think maybe I’m his kith now, after he lost his old one. I don’t know what ‘kadan’ means, but they called each other that.”

Zevran considered that for a long while. “This is not where I expected this conversation to go,” he said finally.

Drust laughed. “You’re telling me,” he said. He reached for Zevran’s hand again, and this time the elf didn’t shy away. “Look, what I have with him isn’t like what I have with you. You’re both important to me, but other than that there’s nothing to compare.” He paused, then added softly, “He’s not going to replace you.”

Zevran turned his eyes on him, confused and afraid and maybe just a little bit hopeful. Smiling, Drust brushed his thumb over his jaw, pulling him down into a kiss. “If it really bothers you, I’ll talk to him,” he said. “We can work something out.”

Zevran winced. “Please, no,” he said. “I’ve embarrassed myself enough for one evening. If you say you are not lovers, and that your closeness with him will have no bearing on… on us, nor ours on him, that’s enough for me.”

Drust wasn’t sure he believed that, not entirely, but he let it go for now. Zevran had come so far since they had met, but he still had so many defences; it would take time before Drust could pull them all down. Perhaps knowing that Sten wasn’t his lover would make a difference, but all he could do was wait and see.

They sat together in silence until dinner was called. Zevran stood with effortless grace, and Drust reluctantly dragged himself away from the Stone, following him over to the fire. Sten raised his eyebrows as he handed Drust a bowl of curry, indicating Zevran with a questioning glance, but Drust just shook his head. If Zevran didn’t want him to say anything, he was hardly going to share.

Still, it was obvious—and not just to Sten—that something had happened between them. Zevran was uncharacteristically quiet as they ate, and Drust stuck close to him, letting the mealtime chatter flow over his head without paying it much mind. Following Leliana’s lead, the rest of their companions turned away slightly, giving them a bit of space and the illusion of privacy. Drust focused on Zevran, trying to convey _belonging_ in every small touch.

By the time dinner was over and Wynne had collected the dishes, Zevran had opened up and rejoined the conversation. That should have set Drust’s mind at ease, but instead it just wound him tighter. He sprawled out in front of the fire, leaning back against Cadeyrn as he so often did, and tried to relax, but it didn’t work. He could feel all the places where the edges weren’t quite meeting—Sten’s eyes on him, solemn and faintly puzzled, and the quiet fragility hiding beneath Zevran’s silvery laugh. He didn’t know how to make the pieces fit.

“Zevran,” he said softly. The elf immediately fell silent, focusing his full attention on him, and with an unsteady heart Drust reached up to brush his fingers down his jaw. “It’s still bothering you. Tell me.”

For a moment Zevran didn’t speak, then he turned his face into Drust’s hand, closing his eyes and pressing a kiss to his palm. “I’ve spent so long thinking you were lovers, or intended to be,” he said, voice low. He didn’t open his eyes. “I thought—it was obvious that you preferred him, and if that was what you liked you wouldn’t truly be interested in me. I am not—well. I’m not that sort of man.” He shook his head. “But what business was it of mine? And if you wanted to dally with us both, what of it? You have as much right to your flirtations as anyone. But then it didn’t seem so much like flirtation when you spoke with him.” He laughed suddenly, but it was a humourless, self-conscious sound. “And now I learn that it wasn’t flirtation after all, but not for the reasons I expected. I admit I feel a little off balance.”

Zevran had always had a gift for making his heart ache, but Drust had forgotten how bad it could be. “You’re not my second choice, Zevran. Even if I was just having fun, I’d never…” He swallowed. “I wanted you before we even spoke, you know.”

Zevran’s eyes flickered open then, and Drust had never seen him look more vulnerable than he did in that moment. “You say that, and I trust you,” he said, “but at the same time there’s some part of me that wonders if you’re not simply lying to spare my feelings. If perhaps you and he really are lovers, and I shouldn’t just step aside after all and make things easier on all of us.”

“Don’t,” Drust said. “Don’t you dare.” He said up, reaching for him, and was gratified when Zevran turned into his hands. “I will never lie to you. I promise you that.”

“I know,” Zevran said, “but even so…”

He shrugged, trailing off, and Drust didn’t even try to keep his voice from shaking. “I’m going to tear the Crows apart for what they did to you.”

Zevran’s eyes widened, and he stared at him for what seemed like an age before burying his face in Drust’s shoulder with a soft sound. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you, amante,” he sighed.

Drust’s arms were steady around him, and gently he wound his fingers into Zevran’s hair. “That’s the point, sweetheart,” he said. “You didn’t have to do anything.”

They stayed like that until the fire started burning down to embers, then Zevran shifted, sitting up and surreptitiously wiping his eyes. “Thank you,” he said. “And… I’m sorry you had to see that.”

Drust wanted to object, but he had the feeling Zevran was apologizing more to himself than to him. “It’s fine,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“I will be, I think,” Zevran said. He sounded like himself again, and a knot of tension loosened in Drust’s chest. “I just need a chance to… reassess, I suppose. I was _so_ convinced you were lovers,” he added, his voice a touch plaintive.

Drust laughed softly and caught his hand, running his thumb over Zevran’s knuckles. An idea was beginning to form in his mind, a way to help Zevran see how he was wanted. “Would it be easier if you talked to him?” he said slowly. “Not about this, I mean—just, talked, like friends. You don’t know each other well at all, do you? Granted, that’s mostly on him, but…”

Zevran was watching him with a strange look in his eyes. “I… honestly, I couldn’t say,” he said. “Would he want to talk?”

“He knows you’re important to me,” Drust said. “I think that’s enough that he’d try, at least.”

Zevran chewed on his lip for a moment. “Very well,” he said. “If nothing else it would be good to look at him with a better understanding.”

Drust nodded, and raised his voice. “Sten,” he called, “would you come sit with us?”

The Qunari had been honing the edge of his sword, but at Drust’s request he returned it to its sheath and stood, crossing to them. “You have need of me, kadan?”

“Just your company,” Drust said. He touched Zevran’s arm, soothing suddenly tensed muscles with quiet fingers. “I thought it would be nice to talk.”

Nodding slowly, Sten sat down, crossing his legs and letting his hand come to rest on Cadeyrn’s neck. The dog, who seemed particularly fond of him, whuffed happily and settled down with his head tipped into Sten’s hand. Sten obligingly scratched his ears, then looked up, his sharp eyes moving from Drust’s face to Zevran’s. “You were discussing me,” he said.

Zevran made an indignant noise, his concern briefly forgotten. “Were you listening to us?”

“No,” Sten said calmly. “I was watching. Your glances not as subtle as you think they are, elf.”

“I have a name, you know,” Zevran said.

Sten favoured him with a dry look. “Yes, I am aware.”

Zevran scoffed. “Well, are you going to use it?”

“Unlikely,” Sten said.

Drust bit back a smile. He couldn’t help but be reminded of his first conversations with Sten, long before Zevran had rejoined their company. “I don’t think he uses anyone’s name. I was ‘Warden’ for months,” he said. He looked at Sten; he found the Qunari raising an eyebrow at him, and had to resist the urge to laugh. “You could call him ‘assassin’ instead.”

“‘Elf’ is shorter,” Sten said.

Zevran elbowed Drust. “You’re not helping.”

“Am I not?” Drust said, leaning in to kiss Zevran’s jaw. “We are talking.” _We’re all talking, and I’m still here with you_.

For a moment Zevran just blinked at him in astonishment, but then his lips quirked into a smile. “I suppose we are, at that,” he said. He turned his eyes on Sten, contemplative. “I’ve met a few qunari in Antiva, you know. ‘Sten’—it’s not a name, is it? It’s your rank, is it not?”

With a sudden, surprised clarity, Drust remembered Sten’s kith in his dream— _the sten_ , they had called him. He had noticed it in passing, and wondered at it, but there had been other things occupying his mind at the time. He had certainly never connected it to Sten’s penchant for calling everyone by their titles.

Sten snorted once, but otherwise did not address the question. “Those were not Qunari,” he said instead.

“No?” Zevran said. “They were what, then? Very large dwarves with comical accents?”

“Hey,” Drust said mildly. Zevran flashed him a grin.

Sten shook his head sharply. “They wear the faces of Qunari, but they are Tal-Vashoth, fiends of Seheron,” he said. “They have abandoned the Qun.”

Zevran hummed. “Yet they have titles like your own, which makes me curious,” he said. “What is your real name?”

Sten shifted, his voice a rumble in his chest. “‘Sten’ is enough.”

“But it is not your name,” Zevran pressed.

“It is who I am,” Sten said.

The silence stretched out between them, and for a moment Drust feared that that was the end of it, but then Zevran heaved a dramatic sigh and rolled his eyes. “Qunari,” he said.

“Your lives would be easier if you would accept your place among us,” Sten said.

Zevran chuckled. “Thanks all the same, but I’d rather not.”

Sten considered him for a long moment, and Drust nearly held his breath, wondering what he was looking for in Zevran’s face—what he would say. Zevran looked warily back, his fingers tightening on Drust’s leg, and Drust took his hand, drawing him close.

“I knew one of your countrymen once, elf,” Sten said suddenly.

“Oh?” Zevran said cautiously. “Have you been to Antiva, then?”

“No,” Sten said. “Until I came to Ferelden, I had never left the islands. She came to Seheron twice a year with the traders who bought spices from the northern jungle. Only she among the traders would speak to the antaam—questions about the rainforest, its depths, the things to be seen there.” He shrugged. “We humoured her. She was… an unfortunate soul.”

“Unfortunate?” Zevran said. That clearly wasn’t where he’d expected this story to go. “In what way?”

Sten’s mouth twisted wryly. “She was a Crow, as you were. Sent to assassinate the kithshoks, leaders of the army of Seheron, for the Tevinter Imperium. We knew this, and pitied her.”

“I’m surprised you did not simply slay her,” Zevran said conversationally. Drust laughed, nudging him, and Zevran looked down with the flash of a smile. “What? It’s what I would have done.”

“I know,” Drust said. “That’s the point. We can’t all be assassins.”

“There was no need in any case,” Sten said. “Her questions were meant to show her the way through the jungle towards our fortifications. And so one day, she snuck into the jungle to find her target. We found the pieces of her body in the tree, where the spotted cats kept them for later.” His voice was matter-of-fact, his body still, his hands folded neatly in his lap. “We had never told her that our kithshoks were the ones who negotiated all the trades at the port.”

Zevran made a dismissive noise, shaking his head. “Then she was a fool,” he said. “That’s not very sympathetic, I’m afraid.”

“It was her ignorance we pitied, not her mistake. She believed we hoarded the things we cared for, as her own people do,” Sten said. He looked up, meeting Zevran’s eyes, and for the first time Drust had the chance to see what that intense focus looked like directed at someone else. “We were sorry for her, that she thought only some people were important.”

Drust heard all the breath leave Zevran’s lungs. He stared back at the Qunari, and Sten didn’t look away, eyes boring into him. When a log settled in the fire with a sudden scrape, both Drust and Zevran jumped.

The spell was broken. Satisfied that his point had been made, Sten got to his feet. “The hour grows late. Goodnight, kadan,” he said. He nodded to Zevran. “Elf.”

Zevran drew in a slow breath as Sten disappeared into his tent. “Does he do that often?” he said.

Drust laughed. “Constantly.”

“Well, that sounds exhausting,” Zevran muttered. He gave Drust a considering look. “But I believe I can see why you enjoy his company.”

Drust nodded. “He makes me think.”

“ _I_ think,” Zevran said, “that I would like to _stop_ thinking now.”

“That sounds good, too,” Drust said. He caught the front of Zevran’s shirt and pulled him down into a deep kiss, pouring into it all the love that Zevran wouldn’t let him express out loud. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go to bed.”

Zevran rose, pulling Drust up after him, and together they made their way into the tent. Drust could feel, in the way Zevran pressed close to him and ran his fingers down his chest, that he was still feeling vulnerable, but his hands were steady and his breath was warm against Drust’s throat. Drust could be satisfied with that for now.

They would talk about this again, he knew, and again when Zevran’s insecurities resurfaced, and again when Drust wanted to reassure him that he wasn’t going anywhere, and maybe someday Zevran would even admit to the love he so clearly craved—but those were concerns for the future. For now, Drust had his lover, and their bed, and the warmth of this still-unspoken thing between them, and the morning still hours away.

No matter what the dawn would bring, he had never had so much in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> The recipe that Drust cooks for Zevran is a real medieval recipe from Spain and can be found [here](http://www.medievalcuisine.com/site/medievalcuisine/Euriol/recipe-index/casola-de-carn). I make no promises as to its quality, as I have not actually tried it myself; my area of historical cooking expertise lies far more with the British Isles.


End file.
